Tolkien: Artist & Illustrator

[sigridhr]

I took some scans from Hammond, W. G., & Scull, C., 1995. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator. Harper Collins: London, and a few notes, for anyone who might be interested. :) Apologies for the places where the scans are a bit crappy. I tried, guys. I had to smuggle my scanner into the library and everything.



Tolkien gave a lecture on dragon development to a bunch of children at Christmas in 1938. He described two kinds - 1) creeping (like Glórund) and 'winged' (Smaug, presumably). Young dragons are pretty "(as young things often are)".

"A serpent creature, but with four legs and claws; his neck varied in length but had a hideous head with long jaws and teeth or snake tongue. He was unusually heavily armoured especially on his head and back and flanks. nonetheless he was pretty bendable (up and down or sideways), could even tie himself in knots on occasion, and had a long powerful tail… some had wings_ the legendary kind of wings that go together with front legs (instead of being front legs gone queer)… a respectable dragon should be 20ft or more." (Lecture at the Bodlean on manuscripts).

Beowulf fighting the dragon head on was, apparently, "the wrong way to do it." HAHA.

Here's some of the images he used for that lecture:

The Hobbit

Tolkien conceived of the Hobbit as an illustrated book, but Rayer Unwin didn't think so and hadn't allowed cost margin for illustrations, but included them anyway because a) it's Tolkien, and b) they're charming.

Just as an aside: Tolkien was never confident drawing figures. "When, in March 1938, his American publisher cabled to ask him to supply some drawings of hobbits for advertising, he replied that he was not competent to do so, and to prove it (to himself) he drew on the telegram a very inadequate pencils ketch of a hobbit dressed like Bilbo […], arms akimbo, with a face left blank and with ears rather more than 'slightly' pointed". HAHAHA.

Here's some of his artwork for the Hobbit. He produced several watercolours (which are stunning), and pencil sketches. My favourite thing about it is the fact that the Dwarves look like they've just walked out of Snow White. It's much more childish and whimsical than the feel of LotR, and you can see in his early work (incl. some of the sketches for the Silmarillion) that he hadn't conceived of them initially as being as grand as say, PJ's and Weta's visions of them.



Bag End













(I absolutely adore this one. So much).


(I'm particularly fond of the Dwarves' feet sticking out of the sacks, and Bilbo watching from the bushes). 



(Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to Erebor we go.) 

The Lord of the Rings

Apparently he received some criticism for his drawings in the Hobbit, and wrote a letter to his publishers saying that he thought they were crap. To which, Unwin, to his credit, wrote back and said that he thought they were awesome, the Hobbit had burned through its first and second printings, and could we have a fucking sequel please? Nevertheless, Tolkien made fewer drawings for LotR than the Hobbit (and all of them were made while the book was in-progress, rather than after as was the case with the Hobbit). They're mostly coloured pencil, and they're all lovely. He seemed to find map drawing essential to wrapping his head around the geography of the story, so there are several maps (which I mostly didn't scan).

Also, he made a facsimile of the pages from the book of Marzabul. With real burn marks. And puncture holes for the binding. JUST BECAUSE.

Barad-dûr. 



The Walls of Moria



Orthanc



Lothlórien.

The Silmarillion

These were mostly drawn in the early years c. 1927-8. The Halls of Manwë is my favourite, though. Note Beleg's pointy little red elf shoes in the watercolour of Fangorn forest. Also, Tolkien apparently set aside time to design the carpets in Númenor. Just because. So for those of you who were wondering what Númenorean carpet patterns looked like, WONDER NO LONGER.



The Mithrim.



Númenorean Carpet Design



Fangorn



The Halls of Manwë
 

Comments

[gallifaerie.livejournal.com]

Wow, you spoil us, you really do. This is really awesome! :)

the legendary kind of wings that go together with front legs (instead of being front legs gone queer)
Haha! That is an excellent description of wings without forelimbs (that would give you a wyvern I think, not a dragon?).

I really like the one titled 'Bilbo comes to the huts of the raft elves' - the way he painted the water is so stylised and gorgeous!

My copy of LotR has prints of three of the leaves from the book of Marzabul. I wondered what they were doing there, and now I know it was just Tolkien being Tolkien I guess!

[sigridhr]

I do try! :D The book is fantastic. I want a copy so badly but they're like $200 on Amazon :(.

YES! I love the way he describes things too, with snarky or silly little asides. God, he was such a lovely man sometimes. I love reading his letters so much.

I love that one! Smaug and the Halls of Manwë are my favourites, though, I think. There's something about the rich warm tones in the Smaug picture that I absolutely adore. And the Halls of Manwë – you can see how it informed later artists (Alan Lee, in particular, I think) when they did their work.

Ooooh! *makes grabby hand motions* None of mine did. That's fantastically cool.

[halberdier]

wings without forelimbs (that would give you a wyvern I think, not a dragon?). Definitely a Wyvern. Thank heavens I went to a school with a wyvern in the crest, so that I *had* to know this ;-)

[(Anonymous)]

Haha, that sounds like a fantastic school crest! I must admit I only know because the Camelot crest in BBC Merlin features a wyvern (for some unknown reason, because the family is the Pendragons, not the Penwyverns).

[halberdier]

The Wyvern was the best part (and by best I mean easiest and most fun to draw).

I still want to know how Gwaine knew that Wyverns were the distant cousins to the dragons... How/why was his awareness of magic never explained to us? But that's a rant for another time.

[gallifaerie.livejournal.com]

And that was me before I signed in *facepalm*

[halberdier]

Oh, gods want!!!! Thank you for sharing!

But, seriusly? £724.45 is a downpayment on a car. Boo!

My copy is illustrated by Alan Lee, lovely watercolour paintings that really show exactly the words on the page, but to get Tolkien's own concepts and insights is just... incredible. Also I love that he included binding-holes in the page of the book of Marzabul. Attention to Detail for the win.

[sigridhr]

My pleasure! Given it's ludicrously overpriced, I felt it was something of a civic duty. ;)

Oh, I want a copy illustrated by Alan Lee. Actually, I just want a copy of his sketchbooks - so, so badly. His concept art for the films is incredible.

Yeah, Tolkien is quite under-rated as an artist, I think. His watercolour work is gorgeous. But I always find it funny that his artwork seems to lack the scope and scale of his writing, a little bit (particularly the picture of Orthanc, for example).

Haha! When I showed my mum that picture of the book of Marzabul, she went "you did that when you were a kid!" I spent a large part of my childhood aging parchment with tea and coffee and then burning it after writing on it in various scripts. I felt so geekily pleased by the fact that Tolkien apparently did so too. :P

[halberdier]

The Alan Lee illustrated books (and the movie tie-ins, bleh) seem to be the most popular ones here, and I'm not surprised. I'm kind of keeping them just for the pretty and to have the set (I may indulge my collector-self and get The Silmarillion, too).

I think tthe fact that his own art couldn't quite convey what he imagined made him think he wasn't good as an artist. No, Tolkien, that just means you have an AY-MAYZ-ING imagination :)

I remember doing that, too. I loved doing stuff like that even for the Leaving Cert, rather than the still life and life drawing that just made me want to tear my hair out and never so much as scribble again. School/work can drain all the fun out of art so easily. ;__;