Illustrating Tolkien
Since the publication of
After Tolkien's death in 1973, many artists have created illustrations of Middle-earth characters and landscapes, in media ranging from
Tolkien's artwork
Tolkien's views on illustration
Tolkien held strong opinions on illustrating fantasy, especially of his own works, but his statements made at different times are not easy to reconcile into a single point of view.[3][4]
Destroy useful ambiguity
In his 1936 essay On Fairy-Stories, Tolkien wrote that "However good in themselves, illustrations do little good to fairy-stories."[4][T 2] He argued that by giving somewhat generic descriptions in words, the author leaves freedom for the reader's imagination. The Tolkien scholar Nils Agøy suggests that in The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien makes frequent use of ambiguity for exactly this reason.[4] Tolkien's illustrations for The Hobbit provide, in the words of the Tolkien scholars Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull, "backgrounds on which readers can paint their own mental pictures, directed by a text but not constrained by too specific an image".[5]
Could work if well-drawn
The 1938 American edition of The Hobbit was illustrated with five of Tolkien's own watercolour paintings.[1] Tolkien was at that time willing to have images in the actual text of the novel, illustrating specific episodes of the narrative. He commented in a 1938 letter to his American publishers, Houghton Mifflin, who were looking for illustrations for their forthcoming edition of The Hobbit, that they should seek an artist "who can draw [human figures]" as his own drawings of hobbits were "an unsafe guide", some of them "very ill-drawn".[T 3][a] He mentions, too, that there could be "special illustrations of episodes" in the story where the hobbit Bilbo might appear wearing boots, which he says Bilbo acquired in Rivendell, but in the other illustrations he should be drawn with bare feet.[T 3]
Must be in keeping with the text
In 1946, Tolkien voiced his objections to Horus Engels's illustrations for a German edition of The Hobbit. He described the work as having "certain merits", but "too 'Disnified' for my taste: Bilbo with a dribbling nose, and Gandalf as a figure of vulgar fun rather than the Odinic wanderer that I think of".[T 5][b]
Tolkien felt that the requirements of a good illustration were not the same as for being a respected or fashionable artist. When Allen & Unwin were working with the artist Milein Cosman on illustrations for Farmer Giles of Ham in 1948, Tolkien described the sample drawings as resembling the work of Feliks Topolski or Edward Ardizzone, commenting that he wasn't "much interested in [their] fashionableness".[T 4] That did not make up, in his opinion, for "their lack of resemblance to their text".[T 4] He stated, among more detailed objections, that the artist should have located the illustrations in or near Oxfordshire; that the trees were poorly drawn; and that the dragon was "absurd. Ridiculously coy, and quite incapable of performing any of the tasks laid on him by the author."[T 4] In short, he found Cosman's samples "wholly out of keeping with the style or manner of the text".[T 4]
By 1949, Allen & Unwin had found another artist to illustrate Farmer Giles of Ham, Pauline Baynes. Tolkien expressed delight at the result, writing that the images were "more than illustrations, they are a collateral theme", explaining that "they reduced my text to a commentary on the drawings."[T 6]
Should "depict the noble and the heroic"
Tolkien met the Dutch artist
Detail of Cor Blok's painting Battle of the Hornburg II that Tolkien liked enough to purchase. It was the only one of Blok's Middle-earth images that worked for Tolkien as an illustration, as opposed to a stand-alone painting.[9] |
Should leave freedom for imagination
Tolkien told Blok that "he was not in favour of illustrated editions".[6] However, they agreed that an illustrator should omit anything non-essential from an image.[4] In a letter to Baynes, who had by then illustrated several of his minor works, Tolkien similarly mentioned his objections to illustration, but stated that a case could be made for "illustration (or decoration!) applied to small things".[T 7] Agøy comments that Tolkien's remarks to these artists are "not unambiguous", but taken together suggest that he believed that freedom should be left for the reader.[4]
Contradictory opinions
The artist Ruth Lacon argues that Tolkien's actions, preparing illustrations for his own works, conflict with what he wrote about their use. She suggests that images are especially useful in complex texts like The Silmarillion.
Style | Application | Example artists |
---|---|---|
Inaccurate failing to match text, tone wrong |
Unusable | Horus Engels[T 5] Milein Cosman[T 4] |
Decorative attractive but without heroic tone |
Minor (non-Middle-earth) tales, vistas, maps | Tolkien's own artwork
|
Illustrative with "noble or awe-inspiring" quality |
In or alongside the text |
In dialogue with Tolkien: 1937–1973
Tove Jansson, 1962
The
The scholar of literature Björn Sundmark states that Jansson's work helped to define how Middle-earth fantasy could be depicted visually.[17] He adds that the edition with her illustrations was not reprinted for many years,[d] even though reviewers and "Tolkienists" liked Jansson's "expressive"[18] images. Sundmark suggests that the reason was that in the 1960s, a new, more realistic style became the norm for fantasy art.[18]
Mary Fairburn, 1968
In May 1968, the English artist Mary Fairburn sent Tolkien several illustrations of The Lord of the Rings, mostly in coloured ink. He replied that they were "splendid. They are better pictures in themselves and also show far more attention to the text than any that have yet been submitted to me".[13] He added "I am beginning to ... think that an illustrated edition [of The Lord of the Rings] might be a good thing."[13]
The project went no further, as Tolkien, aged 76, injured his leg and was in the process of moving house from Oxford to Bournemouth; and the removals team seriously disorganised his papers. In October 1968 he wrote to Fairburn that his publisher Rayner Unwin would take "some months" to decide whether to publish an illustrated edition of The Lord of the Rings, mentioning that black-and-white illustrations were more likely. She states that she created black-and-white versions of 26 of her paintings, one for each chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring and the first four chapters of The Two Towers, the last being "Treebeard". Fairburn lost many of the illustrations in repeated house moves; nine survive,[e] of which one, a coloured painting of "Galadriel at the Well in Lórien" came into Tolkien's possession.[13] Fairburn's illustrations remained unknown to scholars until 2012;[19][13] her work was finally published in the Tolkien Calendar 2015.[20]
Detail of The Pass on Mount Caradhras, Mary Fairburn's 1968 image for "The Ring Goes South".[f] Tolkien called her work "splendid", liking it enough to think of an illustrated The Lord of the Rings.[13] |
Pauline Baynes
Pauline Baynes created the illustrations for some of Tolkien's minor works, such as the 1949 Farmer Giles of Ham and the 1962 The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.[21] In 1969, Tolkien's publisher Allen & Unwin commissioned her to paint "A Map of Middle-earth". Tolkien supplied her with copies of his draft maps for The Lord of the Rings, and annotated her copy of his son Christopher's 1954 map for The Fellowship of the Ring. Allen & Unwin published Baynes's map as a poster in 1970. It was decorated with a header and footer showing some of Tolkien's characters, and vignettes of some of his stories' locations. The poster map became "iconic" of Middle-earth.[22][23][24][25]
The scholar of English literature Paul Tankard comments that "Tolkien clearly admired Pauline Baynes' work, in certain ways and for certain purposes: for illustrations to his slighter and non-Middle-earthly tales, for vistas and for maps—but not for inside and alongside of the narrative of The Lord of the Rings."[13] In short, Tolkien liked her work and found it usefully decorative, but felt that it lacked the "noble or awe-inspiring" quality that Middle-earth illustrations needed, giving as an instance "her ridiculous picture of the dragon" in Farmer Giles of Ham.[13][26]
Tolkien liked Pauline Baynes's decorative illustrations for his minor works such as Farmer Giles of Ham, but thought her style unsuitable for use inside his major fantasy works, as it was not "noble or awe-inspiring"; he found her dragon (pictured) "ridiculous".[13] |
Margrethe II of Denmark
Crown Princess Margrethe (later Queen
Ted Nasmith
While still in high school, Ted Nasmith painted some illustrations for The Hobbit, and in 1972 mailed photographs of a selection of his artworks to Tolkien, including a gouache of The Unexpected Party at the start of The Hobbit.[g] Tolkien responded by letter a few weeks later, both praising the work and commenting that the rendition of Bilbo Baggins seemed a little too childlike. This encouraged Nasmith to strive for a more literal interpretation of Tolkien's works.[29] He later created the illustrations for some editions of The Silmarillion.[30]
Independent views
A Japanese view, 1965
The Japanese artist Ryûichi Terashima (寺島竜一) made a set of drawings to illustrate Teiji Seta's 1965 translation of The Hobbit.[31] Robert Ellwood, writing in Mythlore, admired the work, with the characters treated "with the seriousness to which the epic dimensions of Tolkien's work entitles them."[32] In his view, the characters "emerge in these sensitive line drawings as real, discrete personalities".[32]
Ryûichi Terashima's drawing of Gandalf and Bilbo at Bag End. His representations of these characters has been praised for making them "real, discrete personalities".[32] |
An unrealised Maurice Sendak set, 1967
The children's book author Maurice Sendak was invited to illustrate a deluxe edition of The Hobbit in 1967. He created one surviving sample drawing, of Gandalf with Bilbo smoking outside Bag End.[33] According to the artist Tony DiTerlizzi in the Los Angeles Times, Sendak sent two drawings to Tolkien, the one that survives and one of Mirkwood's wood-elves dancing by moonlight. DiTerlizzi finds the work subtle and masterly, with "heavy crosshatching used to weigh down a world-weary Gandalf contrasted with the open, airy line work that renders the jovial Bilbo."[34] In DiTerlizzi's version of events, the editor accidentally labelled Sendak's wood-elves as "hobbits", which annoyed Tolkien, and he rejected the drawings, angering Sendak. A meeting was arranged to resolve the matter, but Sendak had a heart attack and the publisher cancelled the project. DiTerlizzi offers another possible explanation, namely that Tolkien did not want The Hobbit to be thought of as a children's story.[34][h]
Drawing by Maurice Sendak of Gandalf and Bilbo at Bag End, 1967. The contrasting treatment of the two characters has been described as subtle and masterly.[34] |
Through Slavic eyes, 1976 onwards
Mikhail Belomlinsky 's somewhat cartoonish Soviet-era Russian illustration of the three Trolls arguing over how to cook Bilbo, 1976[35] |
In 1981, the Russian artist
-
Frodo and Sam guided by Gollum through theDead Marshes
-
Orthanc
-
Tom Bombadil frees the Hobbits from Old Man Willow
In 1979, the Czech artist and animator Jiří Šalamoun , known for his children's television series Maxipes Fík starring a cartoon dog,[39] illustrated Frantisek Vrba's translation of The Hobbit. Šalamoun adapted his usual children's style to what he thought would suit the book; Janka Kaščáková comments that the result is "rather far ... from Tolkien's original."[40]
Detail of Jiří Šalamoun's rather wayward illustration of An Unexpected Party for the 1979 Czech translation of The Hobbit.[40] |
The Russian artist Sergey Yuhimov (Сергей Юхимов) illustrated a 1993 edition of The Lord of the Rings[41] in the style of the icons of the Russian Orthodox Church. This use of symbolism may have added layers of meaning to those already intended by Tolkien.[42] Open Culture has described the work as "vivid, stylistically Medieval, religious-icon-saturated".[43]
Sergei Yuhimov illustrated a 1993 Russian translation of The Lord of the Rings in the style of the icons of the Russian Orthodox Church.[43] |
Covers and calendars, 1978 onwards
Paul R. Gregory's Middle-earth paintings, created from 1978 onwards, have appeared on the covers of some 30 rock music albums;[44][45] the artist Ruth Lacon has however described Gregory's work as inaccurate, departing from Tolkien's text.[46] Tim and Greg Hildebrandt, usually called
Calligraphy and illumination, 1990
-
Ulmo, Lord of Waters, saves Voronwë.
-
The Fall ofFall of Gondolin
Fantasy and botany, 2017
Tolkien stated that he had a "special fascination" for illustrated
Classical realism, 2019
The American artist
Donato Giancola's neoclassical painting The Tower of Cirith Ungol has being likened to the dramatic works of Caravaggio or Henry Fuseli.[56] |
The effect of Peter Jackson's film trilogy: 2001–2003 and after
Concept art
The Tolkien illustrators John Howe and Alan Lee became well-known by the end of the 20th century for their Middle-earth artwork — Lee for illustrated editions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings,[58][59] and Howe for the cover artwork to several Tolkien publications. Both men worked as concept artists in the creation of Peter Jackson's 2001–2003 The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, their designs leading directly to those in the films.[58][j] In 2004, Lee won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction on the film The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.[60] Nasmith had been invited to work as a concept artist for Peter Jackson's films but he had declined.[61]
From fan art to recognised artistry
The films attracted a large audience, making the artistic conception of Jackson's artists influential, indeed creating a stereotyped image of Middle-earth and its races of
Anke Eißmann's painting The Parting (of Beren from Lúthien), as narrated in The Silmarillion. Her work has been described as influenced by Peter Jackson's films.[66] |
Jenny Dolfen has made a series of watercolour paintings of scenes from The Silmarillion.[67] She has been described as the best-known of the many self-taught Middle-earth artists; Aurore Noury comments that her fame among Tolkien fans has given her a hybrid status, being both a self-taught fan artist and a recognised and published artist.[68] Dolfen has won three awards from
See also
- The Annotated Hobbit, including numerous covers and illustrations from translations of The Hobbit
- Inger Edelfeldt, who made numerous cover illustrations for Swedish editions of Tolkien's books
- List of things named after J. R. R. Tolkien and his works, including astronomical objects, companies, genes, ships, places, and species
- Middle-earth in motion pictures, including animated films of Tolkien's books
- Works inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien, including films, books, radio plays, music, and games
Notes
- ^ One of Tolkien's drawings of hobbits is in the Bilbo Baggins article.
- ^ The image can be seen in the Horus Engels article.
- ^ The image can be seen in the Gollum article.
- ISBN 978-9-15182-727-8.
- ^ The surviving images are The Old Forest; The Inn at Bree; The Pass on Mount Caradhras; The Bridge at Khazad-dûm; Galadriel at the Well in Lórien; The Great River; Treebeard with Pippin and Merry; Gandalf on the Tower of Orthanc; and The Dead Marshes, also called Sam and Frodo in Mordor with a Nazgûl. The image of Gollum that she had sent to Tolkien (and which he returned with the other samples) is lost.[13]
- ^ "The Ring Goes South" is a chapter in The Fellowship of the Ring, namely book 2, chapter 3.
- ^ The image can be seen in the Ted Nasmith article.
- ^ DiTerlizzi notes that in 1959, Tolkien wrote in a letter "I am not specially interested in children, and certainly not in writing for them."[T 9]
- ^ The 1976 calendar is illustrated in the Brothers Hildebrandt article.
- Orthancimage is illustrated in that article.
- ^ The painting can be seen in the Jenny Dolfen article.
References
Primary
- ^ Tolkien 1977, Front and back cover
- ^ Tolkien 1983, "On Fairy-Stories", Note E.
- ^ a b Carpenter 2023, #27 to Houghton Mifflin, c. March or April 1938
- ^ a b c d e f Carpenter 2023, #116 to Allen & Unwin, 5 August 1948
- ^ a b Carpenter 2023, #107 to Sir Stanley Unwin, 7 December 1946
- ^ Carpenter 2023, #120 to Allen & Unwin, 16 March 1949
- ^ Carpenter 2023, #235 to Pauline Baynes, 6 December 1961
- The Folio Societyedition
- ^ Carpenter 2023, #215 to Walter Allen, New Statesman, April 1959
- ^ Carpenter 2023, #312 to Amy Ronald, 16 November 1969
Secondary
- ^ a b Holmes 2013, pp. 27–32.
- ^ MacLeod & Smol 2017, pp. 115–131.
- ^ a b Lacon, Ruth (14 January 2012). "To Illustrate or Not to Illustrate? That is the Question…". Tolkien Library.
- ^ a b c d e f Agøy 2013, pp. 51–52.
- ^ Hammond & Scull 1995, p. 98.
- ^ a b Blok 2011, p. 15.
- ^ Collier, Pieter (8 March 2011). "A Tolkien Tapestry: Pictures to accompany The Lord of the Rings". Tolkien Library. Retrieved 7 November 2023.
- ^ Blok 2011, p. 8, 27.
- ^ a b c Blok 2011, pp. Slipcase, Foreword
- ^ Blok 2011, p. 9.
- ^ Blok 2011, p. 26.
- ^ Noury 2020, Note 7.
- ^ S2CID 171811464.
- ^ a b c "One Queen to Rule Them All: Margrethe II of Denmark". National Museum of Women in the Arts. 25 February 2013. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
- .
- ^ ""For me it was an adventure to illustrate J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit" – all you need to know about Tove Janssons criticised illustrations". Tove Jansson. 23 February 2023. Archived from the original on 26 March 2023. Retrieved 9 November 2023.
- S2CID 226550272.
- ^ ISSN 0347-772X.
- Times Literary Supplement.
- ^ Collier, Pieter (26 March 2014). "Tolkien Calendar 2015 features artwork from artist Mary Fairburn from The Lord of the Rings". Tolkien Library. Retrieved 5 November 2023.
- George Allen & Unwin.
- ^ McIlwaine 2018, p. 384.
- ^ Kennedy 2016.
- ^ Bodleian 2016.
- ^ Scull & Hammond 2017, pp. 112–113.
- ^ Hammond & Scull 2006b, volume 2, page 422.
- Scandinavian Review. Archived from the originalon 26 May 2021. Retrieved 12 March 2006.
- ^ "Margrethe and Henrik Biography". Royalinsight.net. 16 April 1940. Archived from the original on 30 October 2011. Retrieved 3 February 2012.
- ^ "Ted Nasmith". Radio Rivendell. 25 April 2012. Archived from the original on 5 May 2012. Retrieved 3 February 2021.
- ^ Hoyt, Randy (1 January 2009). "Illustrating Tolkien: Ted Nasmith Interview". Journey to the Sea.
- OCLC 1267526396.
- ^ a b c Ellwood, Robert (1969). "The Japanese Hobbit". Mythlore. 1 (3). Article 2.
- ^ Marshall, Colin (10 March 2014). "The Only Drawing from Maurice Sendak's Short-Lived Attempt to Illustrate The Hobbit". Open Culture. Retrieved 12 November 2023.
- ^ a b c DiTerlizzi, Tony (25 March 2011). "'The Hobbit' illustrated by Maurice Sendak? The 1960s masterpiece that could have been". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 19 March 2013.
- ^ a b Blinderman, Ilia (March 2014). "Soviet-Era Illustrations Of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (1976)". Open Culture. Retrieved 9 November 2023.
- ^ "нога in English". YourDictionary. Retrieved 12 November 2023.
- ^ Belomlinsky, Mikhail. "Книжное обозрение: Леонов «играет» Хоббита" [Book Review: Leonov 'plays' the Hobbit]. Russian Bazaar (in Russian). 2 (508). Archived from the original on 27 April 2014.
- ^ "Александр Коротич. Иллюстрации к произведениям Дж" [Р. Р. Толкина Alexander Korotich. Illustrations for the works of J. R. R. Tolkien]. Uraic.ru (in Russian). 2013. Archived from the original on 18 October 2016. Retrieved 10 September 2023.
The exhibition presents individual illustrations for 'The Lord of the Rings' by J. R. R. Tolkien, created by artist Alexander Korotich from the second half of the 1980s until mid-1997, when the folder with most of the sheets was lost, as well as a number of illustrations for the book J. R. R. Tolkien. Fairy tales by the publishing house 'Ural market', released in 1993.
- Radio Prague International. 1 April 2022. Retrieved 13 November 2023.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-003-40717-1.
- ^ Lebedev, Dmitry Leonidovich (2016). "Visualizations of John Tolkien's fantasy world". Yearbook of Eastern European Studies (6): 106–116. Summary
- doi:10.24382/890.
- ^ Open Culture. Retrieved 5 November 2023.
- ^ "Paul Raymond Gregory – Heavy Metal's Lord Of the Rings". Great Album Covers. 10 February 2013. Retrieved 14 June 2020.
- The Leicester Galleries. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
- ^ Lacon, Ruth (21 January 2013). "Review of Beyond Time and Place - The Art of Paul Raymond Gregory". Tolkien Library. Retrieved 5 November 2023.
- ^ "The Art of The Brothers Hildebrandt". Archived from the original on 29 April 2011.
- ^ "Biography". John Howe. Archived from the original on 6 January 2012. Retrieved 7 January 2012.
- ^ Croft, Janet Brennan (2015). "Notes: In Memoriam: Tom Loback in Mythlore". Mythlore. 33 (2). Article 13.
- ^ "Tom Loback". Elvish Linguistic Fellowship. Retrieved 5 February 2023. (four pages)
- ^ Eden, Bradford Lee (2016). "Subcreation at work: the Art of Tom Loback". The C.S. Lewis & Friends Colloquium (10).
- ^ Wynne, Patrick; Loback, Tom; DiSante, Paula; Beach, Sarah (1990). "'Fëanor Fronts Fingolfin': Artistic Visions of Four Artists". Mythlore. 17 (2). Article 3.
- ^ Journal of Tolkien Research. 4 (2). article 9.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-027631-7.
- ^ "Interview, 'Behind the Canvas: Donato Giancola'". Magic the Gathering. 10 April 2003. Archived from the original on 21 April 2003.
- ^ Tor.com. Retrieved 11 November 2023.
- ^ a b Noury 2020, Note 9.
- ^ a b Svitil 2007, pp. 75–76.
- ^ GoodKnight, Glen H. (1992). "Reviews: The Ring Goes Grey". Mythlore. 18 (3): 55, Article 14.
- ^ "76th Academy Awards". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on 19 February 2006. Retrieved 29 May 2006.
- ^ Shepherd, Wendy (3 February 2004). "Interview With Ted Nasmith, Tolkien Artist". Dreamish.com. Archived from the original on 9 February 2004.
- ^ Manifold, Marjorie C. (2005). "Life as theater and theater as life: Art expressions of information-age youth". Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education. 25: 1.
- ^ Gand, André (21 November 2009). "Interview with Anke Eißmann". Tolkien Bücher. Archived from the original on 14 March 2010. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
- ^ "Deutsche Tolkien Gesellschaft" (in German). German Tolkien Society. Archived from the original on 14 March 2010. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
- ^ LaSala, Jeff (14 September 2016). "Lúthien: Tolkien's Badass Elf Princess". Retrieved 11 November 2023.
- ^ a b Foster, Mike (2016). "Review: 'High Towers and Strong Places'". Mythlore. 35 (1). Article 10.
- ^ a b "Awards - Previous Winners". The Tolkien Society. 29 October 2016. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
- ^ Noury 2020, Note 11.
Sources
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- Blok, Cor (2011). Collier, Pieter (ed.). A Tolkien Tapestry. ISBN 978-0-00-743798-6.
- Bodleian (13 June 2016). "Rare map of Middle-earth goes on display at the Bodleian Libraries". Bodleian Library. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
- ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4.
- ISBN 0-395-74816-X.
- ISBN 0-007-14918-2.
- Holmes, John R. (2013) [2007]. "Art and Illustrations by Tolkien". In ISBN 978-0-415-86511-1.
- Kennedy, Maev (3 May 2016). "Tolkien annotated map of Middle-earth acquired by Bodleian Library". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
- McIlwaine, Catherine (2018). ISBN 978-1851244850.
- MacLeod, Jeffrey J.; Smol, Anna (2017). "Visualizing the Word: Tolkien as Artist and Writer". S2CID 171923300.
- Noury, Aurore (2020). Où se trouve la Terre du Milieu? De l'incarnation d'un nouvel imaginaire collectif dans l'espace quotidien [Where is Middle-earth? On the incarnation of a new collective imagination in everyday space]. Actes du colloque 2020 du Laboratoire des Imaginaires (in French). pp. 185–205. ISBN 978-2-9574143-0-7. hal-03884812.
- ISBN 978-0-0082-1454-8.
- Svitil, Torene (2007). So You Want to Work in Animation & Special Effects?. ISBN 978-0-7660-2737-4.
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