Talk:J. R. R. Tolkien's artwork

J. R. R. Tolkien's artwork has been listed as one of the Art and architecture good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: July 29, 2020. (Reviewed version).

This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

GA Review

This review is
Talk:Tolkien's artwork/GA1
. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Aza24 (talk · contribs) 00:38, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Nice to see your determination in improving so many Tolkien articles – this one especially caught my eye. Expect comments soon! - Aza24 (talk) 00:38, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for taking this on, and for the kind words. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:37, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Types of artwork (formatting)

"Artwork" is probably more to the point than "Types of artwork"
- Hmm. I tried it (see the edit history) but the section actually goes through the different types that he created. The obvious problem with the short name is that it sounds redundant with the article title, which actually it is not. We could call it "Types of work produced", which is its import, so perhaps shortening it is going in the wrong direction.
  - (I'll move the bulk of the conversation here) The main issue with labeling the section "types of artwork" is that is not really what it is. That is to say that "Types of artwork" would imply that the subsections to be something like "Drawings" "Paintings" "watercolors" "maps" when at the moment they are not split up as such. Another option might be to have something like this:

==Sketches and paintings from life== (This section in particular would make more sense as something like "Early works" since "from life" applies to everything in his life and "Sketches and paintings from early life" would be a mouthful)
==Individual books==
===The Hobbit====
===The Lord of the Rings===
===The Book of Mazarbul===
===The Doors of Durin===
===The Silmarillion===

and then I would keep the next two seperate

==Maps==
==Calligraphy==

If you'd rather not combine the the "Sketches and paintings from life" and influences then I think you're right about the influences section being awkwardly placed if at the beginning of the article, so feel free to move it back. I'm more than willing to discuss these points further so please don't feel pressure into agreeing with me to "pass the GA" or anything, you're the subject expert here! Aza24 (talk) 23:13, 28 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well I may have some knowledge of Tolkien-ology but little about organising art articles. The sketches are however more or less the only things he did "from life", as all the illustrations are fictional, "from imagination", fantasy, though no doubt based on knowledge of the appearance of trees, mountains, and so on. It is also true they are early work, and as these are sharply separate, and formative of his ability to draw, it makes sense to pull them out and have a separate 'for his books' section. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:18, 29 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Types of artwork (Sections)

Addressed/conversation moved

The Hobbit

I believe that "oeuvre" is an english word, so the italicization is not needed. (The french word is different, "œuvre
- Done.

Before I continue reading, after glancing ahead, the formatting of the "types of artwork" section as a whole seems hard to follow. Some issues:

The Heading of "Types of artwork" in general seems uncalled for – this article is about his artwork in the first place so there is little need to have this heading. Likewise "Illustrations" seems unnecessary as well, especially as its use here is rather ambiguous, referring to paintings, watercolors, drawings etc. I suggest removing it and just having "The Hobbit" "LOTR" (and its sub sections), "The Silmarillion", "Maps", and "Calligraphy"
- Maybe we can discuss this, as there might be method in my madness... "Artwork" is balanced against "Influences" and "Reception", i.e. there is a section on what he did, a section on why he did it, and a section on what people thought of it, which does seem reasonable. As for "Illustrations", these are works made for the purpose of illustrating the text of his books; I'll try "Book illustrations" for size. That does (as you seem to acknowledge) seem rather different from cartography and calligraphy, both of which add to the text in different ways than illustration.

I wonder if the "Sketches and paintings from life" and "Influences" could be combined into an initial "background" section before "illustrations" – this would flow better with the overall article. A reader would be better served understanding his background in drawing and influences before they learn what this background and these influences led to.
- Well, that is linked to whether we have a "Types of work" section. If we do, then Sketches fits into it as the first type he created, and background doesn't. I've moved Influences to the start so it flows into the artwork; it's a little awkward as it talks about things discussed in the artwork section, but it's not major.
  - Ah that is a fair point. The reason I brought this up is because I immediately interpreted "from life" to simply mean things he's drawn/made in his life, not of things from his life. Aza24 (talk) 23:38, 29 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

These comments in particular are how I see the article from my experience in writing about art on WP. Let me know what you think.

Anyways,

The line "The British edition had as its frontispiece Tolkien's drawing The Hill: Hobbiton-across-the-Water, depicting Bilbo Baggins's home village of Hobbiton in the Shire, with the old mill, based on the mill at Sarehole, and The Water in the foreground, an idealised English countryside in the middle distance, and The Hill and Bilbo's home Bag End in the background" would benefit from different phrasing (the sentence is rather lengthy at the moment). Ideas:
- The British edition also had Tolkien's drawing The Hill: Hobbiton-across-the-Water as its frontispiece, which depicted an idealised English countryside surrounding Bilbo Baggins's home village of Hobbiton in the Shire. The old mill, based on the mill at Sarehole, and a river appear in the foreground, while in the distance The Hill and Bilbo's home ("house"? – to seperate from "home village" more?) Bag End.
- The British edition also had a frontispiece of Tolkien's drawing The Hill: Hobbiton-across-the-Water, depicting Bilbo Baggins's home village of Hobbiton in the Shire, with the old mill (based on the mill at Sarehole), and a river in the foreground. The work is set in an idealised English countryside and The Hill and Bilbo's home Bag End can be seen in the distance.
  - Many thanks. I've split the sentence up.

I'm sure you'll be able to phrase it better than me and it looks like the source you cited clarifies why he used "The Water" rather than just saying "river", but for the description "river" would be more appropriate imo. You might consider explaining this (the reasoning of calling it "The Water" and "The Hill") in the text as it's rather interesting – just an idea.

The critic Tom Shippey talks at length about Tolkien's naming of places in the Shire (the key point being the obvious one, that he made names just out of ordinary things: hills, water), so the matter can be cited, but perhaps it's a bit off-topic for this article.

Imo it's a little strange that this section goes from talks about the British, then English, then British and then English editions, but I don't think that's a huge deal
- Ah, we English. We find it hard to distinguish, out of long habit. However, "British edition" is correct, we use "British", curiously, as the adjective for "made in the United Kingdom" (don't ask); whereas Tolkien thought of himself as "English", if not indeed as West Mercian (the ancient region where he lived, and a dialect of Old English).
  - Oh, apologizes for the miscommunication. I meant rather that it might make more sense discussing what the British version included and then the English version, since at the moment they are somewhat interlaced with each other, if that makes sense.
    - Done.

The Book of Mazarbul

The line "to resemble the burnt, torn volume found abandoned at the tomb of the Dwarf-leader Balin in the subterranean realm of Moria; in the story, the wizard Gandalf struggles to read out a substantial amount..." might be better phrased as

"to resemble the burnt, torn volume abandoned at the tomb of the Dwarf-leader Balin in the subterranean realm of Moria; in the story, the wizard Gandalf finds this volume (journal? manuscript?) and struggles to read out a substantial amount..." since the former makes it unclear if Gandalf was the one who found it (which I'm assuming he was)

- Done.

"authentic" may work better than "convincing"
- Done.

The Doors of Durin

"That lettering in fact contained the password, to those who could read the Feänorian script and understand the Elvish." may work better as "This lettering in fact contained the password, visible to those who could read the Feänorian script and understand the Elvish." (What is "the Elvish" and why is it needed to be understood by someone, rather than be able to be read by someone – that is, would "read the Feänorian script and Elvish" work better?)
- Good point, I've spelt out and linked
  Elvish language. People might be able to read the script but not speak Elvish, just as I can read the Latin script but not understand Finnish
  .

This part is somewhat unclear, so the illustration that was included was of the "password" then, not the doors themselves? If so, this would be clearer with something like "Tolkien designed the password himself with elegantly..."
- It contained a welcome and the password, so I've said so.

More soon, interesting read so far! Aza24 (talk) 23:45, 27 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:15, 28 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Silmarillion to Reception

I don't have much to say about these sections, they're very well and concisely written, so these are suggests that you can take at your own discretion:

I see that
Númenórean redirects to "Númenor#culture", would that link be appropriate here too for Númenórean? (or perhaps not since Númenor
is linked right after)
- Yes, same article. I've linked the first instance.

Maybe "his characters" could be linked to Middle-earth peoples or List of Middle-earth characters
- Done.

Medieval manuscripts link to Illuminated manuscript instead?
- Good idea, done.

The reception section is looking good – no comments there Aza24 (talk) 04:15, 29 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Great!

Good work here, any issues have been resolved/addresses. I've run it by the GA criteria and this article looks good. Passing now Aza24 (talk) 23:40, 29 July 2020 (UTC) Side note, I'm sure you have a lot of pending tasks, but it looks like the

Tolkien's article has a note that it "needs expansion" – if you get a chance I'm sure you could easily use this article do to so! Aza24 (talk) 23:45, 29 July 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

Suggested move

@

talk) 12:15, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

Another name could be "J. R. R. Tolkien's artwork". I'm just not sure whether "Tolkien's artwork" is sufficiently precise.

talk) 12:18, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

Yes, J. R. R. Tolkien's artwork would match the influences article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:40, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think moving the page to J. R. R. Tolkien's artwork would definitely be a good idea to match other pages with his name in them. Dour1234 (talk) 09:54, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]