Then Cometh the End

A rare allegorical picture by Kat Valentine (née Crystal Tychonievich), who usually does portraits. It depicts the Last Judgment.

Then Cometh the End

I found this a very striking composition, even though I do not yet understand the allegory itself in any detail. I was also struck by the synchronicity of her choice to include an enormous swan in a picture of the Last Judgment -- something which Oswald Wirth also does in his chapter on "Le Jugement" in Le tarot des imagiers du moyen-âge, which I read a few days before seeing the above picture for the first time. His version of that trump is quite conventional, based closely on the Tarot de Marseille, but he also includes a small picture of the same scene, but with a huge swan replacing the angel.

Wirth offers no real explanation of this picture, except to note that Cygnus is the constellation that most closely corresponds to the 20th trump ("we should picture the swan of Leda as being the Pagan equivalent of the Dove of the Holy Ghost"). He connects every one of the trumps with a constellation, though, but in no other case does he offer an alternative version of the card in which its astrological alter ego is inserted into the scene.

Besides the general similarity -- a swan at the Last Judgment -- note that Kat's swan is in an underground cavern, while Wirth's appears to be diving down into an open grave. Note also the unusual dimensions of Kat's picture, which almost make it look like a Tarot card itself.