Artist?

[Firawyn]

I recently stumbled upon a VERY OLD copy of The Hobbit and was surprised to find the book illustrated by Tolkien himself.

I knew that he's drawn the originals of all the maps and such, but then Pauline Baynes patched all that up...I didn't know Tolkien had any artsy talent. :confused:

[HLGStrider]

I actually own a book of his sketches and paintings. He has a whimsical style I like though I admit most of it isn't professional grade. He did some wonderful drawings for the "Father Christmas Letters" and other works he did for his children and was a life long doodler.

Here's the link on Amazon. If it doesn't work just type in the title "JRR Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator."
http://www.amazon.com/J-R-R-Tolkien-Illustrator-Wayne-Hammond/dp/0618083618/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203213025&sr=8-1

He did all the original jacket art for the LotR's as well. A lot of his art was rejected because the color needs were too expensive to print, though. There were a lot more inserts in the original plan of the novels.

[Mike]

That book about Tolkien's art is excellent. Tolkien was quite a good artist, I especially like the ones he did with pencil crayon.

Did you know Barad-dur was built from black brick and blood-red mortar? A fact only revealed in one of Tolkien's drawings...

[Eledhwen]

You may find JRR Tolkien - Artist and Illustrator (http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0618083618/ref=sib_dp_pt/104-0479120-5206310#reader-link) interesting.

I like Tolkien's block-style colouring technique, which retains the other-worldliness of the landscapes he draws. He was also, until his great publishing success, somewhat short of materials; especially during World War II. Yet another parallel with old Niggle.

I pretend I bought Tolkien's Letters from Father Christmas for my children; but with the youngest of them having been nine years old at the time, It was pretty obvious I'd bought the book for myself. It is rich in the illustrations Father Christmas drew to illustrate the situations he was describing to the Tolkien children in the letters (such as the red elves rebuff of the mass Goblin attack, with the assistance of the North Polar Bear). Great stuff.

[Barliman Butterbur]

I recently stumbled upon a VERY OLD copy of The Hobbit and was surprised to find the book illustrated by Tolkien himself.

I knew that he's drawn the originals of all the maps and such, but then Pauline Baynes patched all that up...I didn't know Tolkien had any artsy talent. :confused:

Indeed, he did all of his own works, and much of the Elvish script in the movies were direct copies of his invented alphabet. Especially striking (to me) was the entrance to Moria, in the scene where Frodo figured out the riddle of its entrance. That was virtually the exact copy of Tolkien's depiction of it.

Frankly I would much rather PJ would have used Tolkien's artwork as the standard for his movie "look" than Alan Lee's, whose use of sickly weak yellow and grey leave me depressed. And Pauline Baynes' art is ridiculously stylized for Tolkien; I don't see what he ever saw in it.

Start searching around for the books illustrated by Tolkien himself, and see if you can run down some of the old calendars. You'll be richly rewarded.

Barley

[Eledhwen]

Frankly I would much rather PJ would have used Tolkien's artwork as the standard for his movie "look" than Alan Lee's, whose use of sickly weak yellow and grey leave me depressed.I agree. Alan Lee's paintings are good for glimpsing an individual scene, but as the background for the entire 3 hours of film, his style gave a blanket of gloom over everything but the earliest Shire scenes. JRRT himself strongly objected when someone used the phrase "a Tolkein gloom" about an unrelated subject. He saw Middle-earth as as having a vibrant magnificence - especially Lothlorien! It looked more like Mirkwood in the films.

And Pauline Baynes' art is ridiculously stylized for Tolkien; I don't see what he ever saw in it.I expect his children were delighted with her style - especially for The Hobbit (I myself like the Baynes illustrations in Bilbo's Last Song). He didn't say what it was about her work that so enchanted him; perhaps just that - his own work tended towards stylisation. His blanket dislike of anything Disney might help. At that time, Disney's big-eyed bouncing monstrosities and over-the-top baddies lacked subtlety, to say the least! And the later Tolkien artists had yet to emerge to win his acclaim. Pauline Baynes was pretty much it; and Tolkien did not understand how good his own art was (though he knew his calligraphy was up to scratch) and if I remember rightly, he was astonished when his publishers used some of it.

[Barliman Butterbur]

I think that the proper successor to the Tolkien "artist mantle" is Ted Nasmith (http://www.tednasmith.com/tolkien.html). He created art as Tolkien might have done had he had art lessons.

When you get to the page, click on the Tolkien titles at the top. You will be presented with thumbnails. When you click on them you'll get somewhat enlarged pictures. Click on a picture and you'll get an even larger version. And if you are really lucky, your cursor at that point will become a circle with a plus sign in it, indicating that if you click yet again, you'll get another enlargement allowing you to study the painting in detail, which it richly deserves.

Nasmith combines the best of Tolkien's artwork stylings with that of the Hildebrandt twins (http://www.timefold.com/snapsite/hildebros/) (who, back in the middle 70s, burst upon the scene with their spectacular paintings of Middle-earth published in the now-legendary Ballantine calendars).

These two guys were identical twins, very hippie, very Bohemian at the time, with almost identical painting styles and techniques. They would work 24 hours a day non-stop on a painting (some of which were six by eight feet), spelling each other as necessary, until it was finished. I daresay that Tolkien would probably have disliked some of their works as being too "disneyish," despite their incredible power and beauty. Their calendars were so popular that they went into reprint after reprint and are now collector's items. (Alas, mine ended up in the trash decades ago... :( ) But Nasmith trumps even them.

Barley

[Eledhwen]

I suppose they all have their merits. Nasmith captures the vivid hues that I envisage when I think of Tolkien scenes (the colours Tolkien himself used, when he had them). Lee made excellent depictions of Mirkwood and the goblins of the Misty Mountains; but I could not find one painting that could be called vivid. Nasmith's pictures are all vivid; even when he has deliberately muted them (the Pillars of the Kings, and Leaving Rivendell) there is a vivid undercurrent. I like the use of blues at night. Pauline Baynes, who also illustrated the Narnia books, uses symbols to create an impression in her art work; which I feel has matured in her later work - probably in response to a requirement for more sophisticated artwork in childrens' literature:
http://www.theonering.com/images/medialibrary/Bilbo_s_Last_Song.jpg

[Barliman Butterbur]

Thanks for the Baynes pic. I agree: her art has improved: less Baynes and more "tradition" (at least in that one example).

Barley

[Eledhwen]

The whole of Bilbo's Last Song is beautifully illustrated with scenes from The Hobbit. Each line of the poem is set in a page of art, and is a really lovely piece.

I can't help thinking, when I look at all Tolkien's paintings in the Father Christmas letters, that there is an unused treasure trove somewhere that someone is keeping back - perhaps for later publication, or because some snooty critic says they're not good enough.

I think we should be told:mad:;)

[geordie]

Actually, the book _ Bilbo's Last Song_ has pictures of Bilbo's leaving Rivendell and going to the Grey Havens. I like it very much. But then, I like all of Pauline's work (that which I've seen; she was a commercial artist, as well as a book illustrator).

Pauline Baynes illustrated Tolkien's book Farmer Giles of Ham, pub. in 1949. Tolkien remarked that her drawings 'reduced the text to a commentary on the illustrations'. CS Lewis was impressed too; he asked Pauline to illustrate his Narnia books. Other Baynes/Tolkien collaborations include The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962) and Smith of Wootton Major (1967). Also 'Poems and Stories', first published in a deluxe version in 1980. This contains FGH, SWM and ATB, and also Leaf by Niggle, and 'The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son', which shows another side of Pauline's art; sombre and dramatic.

I collect Tolkien; my special interests being biography; bibliography and art - ie, art by Tolkien, and art inspired by Tolkien. My collection includes all of the calendars published in the UK since 1974; and several US variants; diaries, posters etc. I like Nasmith, Lee and Howe, and also Inger Edelfeldt (1985 calendar) and Steve Hickman; the Hildebrandts are fun. I like Anke Eismann, too. The collection includes two original Nasmiths (small sketches) and one each of Edelfeldt and Eismann. I'm an autograph hound; (almost) everything I have by Lee and Nasmith is signed; and quite a bit of Howe, too. :)

Anyway; that's enough about me... I would recommend 'Artist and Illustrator', and 'The Annotated Hobbit', too.

[geordie]

In fact, there are pictures of episodes from TH in Bilbo's Last Song; these are vignettes at the bottom of the pages. Forgot about that.
:)