Card art
The card art is a discipline of magic and deals with magic tricks, with playing cards are performed.
Historical
The origin of tricks with playing cards lies in the tricks of the cardsharps . Card art pieces that were shown for entertainment purposes were first described by Horatio Galasso: Giochi di carte belissimi di regola, e di memoria = Beautiful card games as a rule and memory (1593). In particular, magicians such as Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin and John Nevil Maskelyne felt challenged to educate those around them about card-cheating tricks through educational pamphlets. In the United States, Jonathan Harrington Green made a name for himself as an author as and with The Reformed Gambler (1858). The art of cards experienced an appreciation in the 19th century by the Viennese Johann Nepomuk Hofzinser , who invented groundbreaking tricks and techniques and revolutionized the presentation. In the English-speaking world, card art established itself in particular through the book Modern magic: a practical treatise on the art of conjuring published by "Professor Hoffmann" (actually Angelo J. Lewis) . Not least because of the standard work The Expert at the Card Table , published in Chicago in 1902 under the pseudonym " SW Erdnase " , card arts became a widespread art in the USA, which was naturally cultivated in gaming circles. The great illusionist Howard Thurston invented the genre of card manipulation as a stage performance, such as the appearance and disappearance of playing cards in the hands, which Cardini perfected. In the 20s and 30s card arts were perfected in quirky New York circles, the most famous of which was Dai Vernon . Many card tricks became known through the books of John Scarne , who made flourishes in particular popular in the cinema and in the early days of television.
In the predominantly English-language specialist literature, descriptions of card tricks usually assume a poker hand with 52 cards, which is common in the USA.
Basic effects
The art of cards is very popular not least because cards can be used to display all the usual effects in the art of magic, but mostly with significantly less effort and the card game as a familiar prop.
"Disappearance Tricks"
Many simple card tricks are based on making cards that disappear in one place reappear in another.
Find maps
Related to this category are the numerous effects in which a card mixed into the game is magically found again. A classic is a card game thrown in the air, in which the card appears on a sword by piercing the cloud of cards. Joseph Pinetti (1750–1800) showed something similar when he shot a chosen map on the wall with a pistol.
Predictions, mind reading and matches ("mental magic")
In the case of the second large category of tricks, the presenter appears to have clairvoyant powers by guessing or predicting cards chosen by the spectator. For this purpose, specially prepared card games are sometimes used to increase the effects, such as the so-called brainwave deck , which allows any imagined or chosen card to be presented upside down when the game is fanned out and with a different back pattern if necessary.
Transformations ("card coloring") (eng. Color change )
Describes tricks in which the card value or the entire card changes, usually by running your hand over it. The three simplest and best-known color changes include the “Snap Change”, the “Twirl Change” and the “ Erdnase Change”. New color changes are constantly being invented, so there are a large number of transformation techniques.
Cardsharps tricks
The artist demonstrates his ability to manipulate a game of chance in any way. A classic is the art of moving a chosen card to any position in a deck of cards. The most famous cardsharp demo is the authentic cardsharp trick called caraway leaves .
Organize
Tricks are related to cardsharing tricks in which card games seem to come together under impossible conditions. Classics are the “Triumph” effect, in which one half of the game is mixed in the other way around, but at the end all cards are roughly face up, as well as the “Oil and Water” effects, in which red cards are magically separated from black cards.
Kinetic Effects
A classic here is z. For example, the trick known as the “card climber”, in which a card emerges from a game in a wine glass as if by magic. Floating cards also belong to this type of effect.
Others
Card artists conjure up torn cards again, let cards permeate each other and combine card effects with other tricks.
Stage manipulation
While card artists mostly work at a short distance and the judgment as to whether an effect is based on the skill of the hands is mostly left to the audience, with stage manipulation the act of manipulation itself becomes the effect. This usually involves making playing cards appear and disappear, as well as enlarging or reducing them. The art of card throwing, boomerang throwing etc. goes in a similar direction.
Decorative handles (cardistry)
Cards are also suitable as elegant props for artistic representations. These are called “flourishes” in the technical jargon of the cardists. A distinction is made between 'one handed' and 'two handed'. In addition to the distinction between one-handed and two-handed, a distinction is of course also made between the various forms of representation.
Forms of representation:
- Cuts: In the so-called 'cuts', the deck of cards is divided into different numbers and different sizes. The 'flourish' is then carried out with these parts / stacks (packets).
- Spreads. The so-called spreads are understood as the spread of the card game. A basic variant of this is known from magic, where the magician spreads the deck of cards on the table with the words: "Draw a card!"
- Fans: A fan is a fanned out card game (mostly circular)
- Aerials: Aerials are flourishes in which one or more cards are in the air for a certain period of time. For example, simply throwing the card up and then catching it again would be an 'aerial'.
- Twirls: With the twirls, a card is moved between the fingers in such a way that it literally dances. The card moves extremely quickly and dynamically between two fingers under the control of the cardist. Often this is associated with an elegant and gentle movement of the arm.
Many magicians prefer not to use such "flourishes" in their performance, as they require a high level of dexterity and thus distract from the magic effect.
The "Flourishes" themselves are not part of the classic card tricks, as the viewer is not deceived here. So nothing happens that seems impossible at first. The focus in cardistry is more on manipulating the card game in such a way that visually fascinating scenes emerge. So it is comparable to juggling, where emphasis is placed on proving one's skills.
techniques
Each effect can be achieved using a variety of different methods. Since card art, on the one hand, is the most widespread branch of magic art , on the other hand, is promoted by the card- cheating industry with professional interest, there are practically no starting points for manipulation and aids that have not been considered.
"Sporty" card artists prefer tricks based on a variety of tricks and systems. Only the standard work The Great Map School , available in several languages - by no means complete - contains descriptions of individual grips in five volumes. Techniques range from simpler tricks and the exploitation of mathematical principles to techniques that require years of practice. The most astonishing mechanical, chemical, printing and electronic methods and aids are used to simplify and enable certain effects. Furthermore, mathematical principles are used as well as optical illusions, psychology and above all the art of distraction. The number of individual card tricks can only be estimated, as the English-language specialist literature in particular is unmanageable and is constantly being developed. Many tricks use a combination of different trick techniques and are structured according to certain psychological principles. It is not uncommon for insiders to pursue the ambition of primarily deceiving the experts with innovations.
presentation
As in the rest of the world of magic, a successful piece of card art primarily defines the presentation. Even simple tricks that are shown with humor and charm often turn out to be far superior in terms of trick technology. With card art in particular, card artists run the risk of succumbing to the ambition of trick technology, but of boring their audience. The typical card artist who pushy "! They even pulling a card" bugging his environment, is a frequent subject of parodies, most recently in the movie Scoop - The big hit of Woody Allen , but which in reality since childhood is an avid amateur card artist. The actual artistic challenge is to design the presentation of a card art piece in such a way that the viewer is equally captivated by the topic, effect and lecture and that the inexplicable effect is not perceived as an attack on his intelligence or observation skills, but as a game.
Others
Magicians' associations organize competitions in card art, such as the Magic Circle of Germany , which selects a "German Master of Card Art" every three years, and the FISM , which awards the title of "World Champion" in the following year. The cosmopolitan Piet Forton, who lives in Switzerland, received this award three times. The most decorated German card artist is Pit Hartling .
The most famous card artists at the moment include Juan Tamariz , Lennart Green, Roberto Giobbi , René Lavand, Daryl Martinez, Darwin Ortiz, Bill Malone, Denis Behr and Ricky Jay . Ricky Jay does a complete stage program with playing cards alone and is even able to throw playing cards through the skin of a watermelon by skillfully throwing playing cards.
literature
- Erdnase, SW: The Expert at the Card Table , Chicago (1902)
- Hofzinser, Johann Nepomuk: card arts , tot. and edited by Ottokar Fischer, (Vienna 1910)
- Hugard, Jean / Braue, Frederick: Expert Card Technique
- Scarne, John: Scarne on Card Tricks
- Rosee, TA and Pankow, K .: Verblüffende Kartentricks , Wilh. Goldmann Verlag, Munich 2003, 4th edition, in the Random House GmbH publishing group, ISBN 978-3-442-16497-4
- Giobbi, Roberto: Big Map School Volume 1 to 5 (1992-2005)
- Martinez, Daryl: Encyclopedia of Card Sleights (DVD)
- Felderer, Brigitte / Strouhal, Ernst: Rare Arts (2006)
- Arimont, Andreas: Das Kartentrick Handbuch , Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt (2007), ISBN 9783833499456