I have to say, frankly, right up front, that I am neither a fan of the artwork of Hieronymous Bosch, nor do I understand it.  So I'm not going to be able to review this deck in terms of how close to Bosch's work the artwork actually is, or whether Atanassov has adequately captured the feel and meaning behind Bosch's tormented style.  For those who are unfamiliar with Bosch's paintings, this is the original stuff of nightmares.  Ghastly creatures with weird proportions, animals that look like they have been created by glueing halves of two different animals together, and so on.  I think a lot of the clip-animation things on the original Monty Python's Flying Circus was inspired by Bosch.
 
Atanassov has created this deck in homage to the work of Bosch, who, despite the fact that his surreal visions are just downright freaky, is well-known and respected in the art world for being one of the visionaries of the Sixteenth century.  Many later artists referred to his work, and took inspiration from it.  And, no matter what I think of the subject matter, Bosch was a very talented painter.  Atanassov is another such talented painter, creating original works in the same vein as Bosch.  You may recognize his name from the restoration work he did in recreating the Visconti Tarot for LoScarabeo a couple of years ago;  he not only restored the ones that are known to exist, but had to recreate several missing cards entirely.  No small task, to be able to do so and have them blend in with an historical deck.
 
In this case, however, I'm still shaking my head.  The work is good, although ghoulish; but I'm not sure that I agree with mixing tarot and Bosch.  There is an excellent quote in the booklet that explains it thus: "The Bosch Tarots are intended to be a window on that world (the world of fears and anxieties) to be used carefully to explore it and in doing so to explore the things we fear."  It is possible, and sometimes a good thing, to use the tarot for such a purpose, but not every reading should delve into the realm of nightmarish monstrosity and grotesque depictions of our darkest fears.
 
At any rate, I held off reviewing this deck for a long time because I thought, well, you should learn more about Hieronymous Bosch before you go and review this deck.  But I realized that the average tarotist might not know all about Bosch and so it was more pertinent to review the deck without it.  Anyone who wants to know more about Bosch can certainly study his work for themselves.
 
The Major Arcana in this deck are gorgeously colored and are titled traditionally according to the Marseilles style.  Justice is 8 and Strength 11.  The black borders contain the titles in English, French, Spanish and German at the top in white lettering, and the title in Italian at the bottom in yellow text.  The Roman numerals for the cards are in the top center border in yellow.  The black really offsets the beautiful colors well and makes them stand out.  Now, I don't want to seem like I am unable to say anything good about this deck, because if you can get past the bad acid trips, there are some seriously interesting details in these cards.  My favorite Major card is the Hierophant, which shows the priest in red robes but if you look carefully he has a pair of slender horns, like a gazelle, and donkey's ears.  He's giving the usual benediction and has a book in his hand but it gives one pause nonetheless.  Another thing I really like is the World card, which shows the World depicted as flat, within a circle, which to my mind seems to represent the conflict between mankind's longtime belief that the world was flat, and the new scientific understanding that it was in fact round.
 
Something I found interesting is that the Minor Arcana cards just don't seem nearly as colorful or alive as the Majors.  You can tell it's by the same artist and whatnot, but it does stand out almost as if it was done at a different period or if perhaps Atanassov was feeling differently when he painted them.  All 78 cards contain scenes in them, no pips in this deck.  Just lots more nightmarish creatures.  There are some seriously disturbed things in this part of the deck too.  It is not uncommon to see people or creatures with various objects protruding from varying orifices of their bodies.  The Ten of Pentacles is one example, with a little guy squatting over a box which holds nine coins; the tenth coin is squeezed between his buttocks.  My question is, does he simply hold it between his cheeks, or is he shitting the coin out?  This is just one of the many mysteries in this deck.
 
The suits are the traditional Chalices, Pentacles, Wands and Swords.  In each suit, the Court cards are King, Queen, Knight and Knave.  The Court cards are probably some of the most normal looking cards in this deck.  They merely show beautiful looking paintings of different persons, much as a work of portraiture might involve.  The only weirdness here is in the backgrounds usually, as these otherwise normal persons might be standing surrounded by oddities.  And of course the Knights are all riding various beasts, not one is a real Knight riding a horse or anything straightforward like that.  Instead, they ride a goat, a bull, a red pony and what looks like a gryphon.
 
The cards themselves are standard sized and are printed on good quality cardstock with a semi gloss coating for protection.  The edges are perfectly smoothed and the corners nicely rounded.  This deck is fairly easy to shuffle and handle but you don't really want to beat it up much, there is something about the look of it which compels one to treat it with respect.  The back design features six small black and white images from the deck, and when you turn it over the same six are shown facing the other way, so it is reversible.  The little white booklet is quite good for it seeks to explain, in concise form, why the image means what the card means.  It is somewhere halfway between an explanation of the image, and a divinatory meaning for the card.  With one profound sentence for each card, it leaves you with something to think about for that card.
 
I recommend this deck mainly for art collectors, I feel that its imagery is too strong to have a widespread appeal.  There are those who really like bizarre images; fans of the Ansata Tarot (and of the Sola Busca) will probably love this deck.  In fact, if this is what Bosch's work was like, I now have a much better understanding of the Ansata, which must have taken a lot of its inspiration from Bosch.  There is no doubt this deck is eloquently executed, but I just don't think it's for everyone.  I would definitely not recommend this as a first deck.  Perhaps with practice using more traditional decks a reader might eventually want to go into those dark nights of the soul which Atanassov has so cleverly depicted here, but someone venturing here for the first time might well be scared off entirely.
 
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Review Copyright 2001 by Gina M. Pace

Bosch Tarot by A. A. Atanassov, 2000
published by LoScarabeo, Torino, Italy
ISBN 0-73870-012-6