The German publishing house, Aquamarin Verlag has specialized in esoteric and new age books along with a long range of series of New Age post cards, which are all illustrated in a special catalogue. Most New Age shops in Germany stock loads of postcards from Aquamarin Verlag. Manteia has already reviewed several sets of postcards by Hans Alois Lian from this publisher.

Another "house artist" of Aquamarin Verlag is the well-known German painter, Carl-W. Röhrig. I have never been attracted to his postcards, but now a full 78 card tarot deck from his hands is available; one of the most interesting decks for quite a long time.

Carl-W. Röhrig's tarot is not only available as a card deck, but also in an excellent hard cover, large format (A4) book, which has all the cards illustrated in color; the majors full page, and the minors in actual card size. Along with the illustrations are texts, maximum two pages for each major arcana card and only a few lines for each minor arcana card. The price of the deck and the book is about the same, so you have to make the decision if you want to get the extra advantage of the text (in German) and the large size majors, and in return miss the possibility to manipulate the deck (unless you buy both, of course). There is no accompanying booklet with the deck.

Deck and book are both excellently printed, the cards on a plastic foil which in this case is not disagreeable. The cards are large size, 90 x 162 millimeters, and the illustrations fill the entire surface, except for the title printed on the majors and a keyword superimposed upon the suit's name on the minors. The colors are bright with very sharp details. Don't tell me, that a good printing job can not be done! This deck is proof. But it takes that the artist is professional and knows his medium. Röhrig`s illustrations are not large paintings reduced, where all details are lost and the contours blurred in the printing process. The art is made with the end purpose in mind.

Carl W. Röhrig has found the most ingenious way of incorporating keywords and foreign language titles in the illustrations as renderings of note paper pages included in the pictorial design. We can even see bits and pieces of well-known tarot imagery included, like the Waite/Smith deck. Astrological, Hebrew and runic references are also incorporated. The art style of Röhrig's tarot is surrealism mixed with modern fantasy. In Röhrig's case it has been a successful attempt, making his tarot deck one out of very few innovations. We are so tired of all the Waite/Smith imitators, so this deck is really a delight.

The text accompanying the illustrations in the book is by Francesca Marzano-Fritz. It describes details of the symbolism in the images, but is not necessary to understand the deck. The text appears to be meant for the art lover, who may be attracted to the book and who does not know of tarot symbolism in general. You owe yourself to get hold of this tarot, and you should do it before international commercial interests deteriorate the quality by, for example, reducing the size of the cards.