Every card in this deck is a photograph of an oil painting. Marie White worked in grisaille, the old-master method of laying down thin monochrome underpainting and building color over it in transparent glazes, which is why the images hold depth and luminosity that flat digital art can't reproduce. The set is heavy for a tarot box — nearly two pounds — because the guidebook runs 192 pages and the shelf case is built to stand up to it.
What you get
- 78 cards, borderless, image to the edge
- Card size 2 3/4" x 4 1/2"
- Landscapes of the Abyss, 192-page guidebook, with five spreads
- Rigid hinged shelf case
- Weight 1.82 lb
- Second edition, 2019, with four paintings not in the 2012 first edition
- ISBN 9780764357169
- Sealed in publisher shrinkwrap
About the deck
Standard 78-card structure: twenty-two Major Arcana and four suits of fourteen. The imagery does not follow the Rider-Waite-Smith illustrative convention, so the little scene-cues most readers learned first — the three figures under the swords, the eight cups walking away — are not here to be recognized. You read the painting. Beginners can absolutely use this deck; the guidebook supplies keyword symbolism for every card.
The symbolic framework is kabbalistic and geometric. White builds card meanings against the Tree of Life, the Merkabah, and the caduceus, and threads Hebrew letter correspondences through the Majors. The guidebook also situates the artwork in the memento mori tradition of medieval and early modern European art, the remember you will die genre of skulls, hourglasses, and guttering candles. That's the honest register of this deck. The paintings go to blood, mortality, and animal bodies, and a shopper who wants a gentle pastel deck for daily affirmation pulls should buy a different one.
Provenance & tradition
Marie White began the Mary-El in 1997 and spent more than a decade painting it. Schiffer published the first edition in 2012; this revised second edition came out in 2019 under the Red Feather Mind Body Spirit imprint, borderless, with an expanded guidebook and a more compact case than the original. It has held a reputation among serious tarot readers since release, and ConVocation regular Benebell Wen has named it a favorite. Printed in China. © 2019 Marie White.
Who this is for
Experienced readers who want a deck that pushes back. Intuitive readers who work from image rather than keyword. Anyone studying the Tree of Life, Hebrew letter correspondences, or the alchemical model of the soul. Shadow work, grief work, and mortality-facing practice. Collectors of art tarot and of oil-painted decks specifically. Gift for a reader who already owns the standard decks and is bored.
