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Illustration «Joker»
Making off

February 24, 2018

Digital painting – video, drawing process for illustration “Joker”

Joker – it’s a special card, included in the standard 54-card French deck. In most card games, the joker can play the role of any other card, either in simple mode or when composing combinations. In the Tarot cards, Joker it’s a card of duality, a combination of opposites, it carries both white and black, truth and falsehood, good and evil.

 

Curiously, that origin of the word “joker” has nothing to do with the English “joker” (“jester”), as many people think. It is believed that it appeared because of the incorrect pronunciation of the name in German game Juker (yuker). It was in this game at the end of XIX century that joker appeared, which denoted the highest trump card.

 

At the kingdom of Ivan Grozny there was a whole staff of jesters, often recruited from the Moscow boyars and served as an indispensable attribute on almost daily feasts. Moscow in times of Ivan IV was well acquainted with the stern character of ruler. Royal jester daily to stake his head. According to Karamzin, once for fun, Ivan Grozny poured hot bowl of cabbage soup on his head jester Ossip, and when he tried to escape, he thrust knife in his back