May 30, 2011

Deck Review- The Fenestra Tarot

Created by Thai artist Chatriya Hemharnvibul, The Fenestra Tarot is an elegant blend of soft mauve, cream and olive watercolor tones influenced by elements of Egyptian history, Japanese manga, western art and classical mythology. This is a truly beautiful deck both graceful and artistically appealing.

The card stock is nice and sturdy yet flexible when shuffling and the cards have a wonderful glossy lamination that really makes Chatriya's artwork pop. The deck itself measures 2 3/4' x 4 3/4" making it a perfect for any sized hands to shuffle. Each card has a wonderful border around it which makes a wonderful window like frame around the images and the word Fenestra itself means window which I found both enlightening and charming at the same time.

The Major Arcana features a stylized and gorgeous border with two graceful roses at the bottom of each card. This deck follows the Rider Waite tradition with it's imagery and makes it a very nice deck for beginners and experienced alike. The Moon card is quite lovely and features two female figures above and below a moon showing half and full phases. The Moon is always one of the first cards I look at in a deck and Chatriya has painted this card exceptionally well in my opinion.

The Minor Arcana are equally as beautiful with their ornate yet distinctly different border from the Majors. It is in the Minor Arcana where you can really notice the Japanese manga influence in the imagery of it's characters but the modern depictions are quite pleasant and comfortable to look at. This is a great deck, I love the colors and it's imagery appeals to me. It is very easy to read with and gives pretty detailed and accurate readings. I definately would encourage one to add the Fenestra Tarot to their collection!


Publisher: US Games Systems
Artist: Chatriya
ISBN: 1-57281-560-4


Images used with permission by US Games








1 comment:

Rori said...

Thank you for this review. I've been waffling about buying this deck, your review has helped!