Since the publication ofJ. R. R. Tolkien'sThe Hobbit in 1937, artistsincluding Tolkien himself have sought to capture aspects ofMiddle-earth fantasy novels in paintings and drawings. He was followed in his lifetime by artists whose work he liked, such asPauline Baynes,Mary Fairburn,Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, andTed Nasmith, and by some whose work he rejected, such asHorus Engels for the German edition ofThe Hobbit. Tolkien had strong views on illustration of fantasy, especially in the case of his own works. His recorded opinions range from his rejection of the use of images in his 1936 essayOn Fairy-Stories, to agreeing the case for decorative images for certain purposes, and his actual creation of images to accompany the text inThe Hobbit andThe Lord of the Rings. Commentators including Ruth Lacon and Pieter Collier have described his views on illustration as contradictory, and his requirements as being as fastidious as his editing of his novels.
After Tolkien's death in 1973, many artists have created illustrations of Middle-earth characters and landscapes, in media ranging fromAlexander Korotich'sscraperboard depictions to Margrethe II of Denmark'swoodcut-style drawings, Sergey Yuhimov's Russian Orthodoxicon-style representations, andDonato Giancola'sneoclassical oil paintings.Peter Jackson's 2001–2003film trilogy ofThe Lord of the Rings, and later ofThe Hobbit, made use ofconcept art byJohn Howe andAlan Lee; the resulting images of Middle-earth and the story's characters have strongly influenced subsequent representations of Tolkien's work.Jenny Dolfen has specialised in makingwatercolour paintings ofThe Silmarillion, winning three awards fromThe Tolkien Society. Graham A. Judd has illustratedhis father's book on theFlora of Middle-earth withwoodcuts showing both the flowers and the scenes associated with them in thelegendarium.
J. R. R. Tolkien accompanied hisMiddle-earth fantasy writingswith a wide variety of non-narrative materials, includingpaintings and drawings, calligraphy, andmaps. In his lifetime, some of his artworks were included in his novelsThe Hobbit andThe Lord of the Rings; others were used on the covers of different editions of these books, and later on the cover ofThe Silmarillion.[T 1] Posthumously, collections of his artworks have been published, and academics have begun to evaluate him as an artist as well as an author.[1][2]
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]
In his 1936 essayOn 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 inThe Lord of the Rings,Tolkien makes frequent use of ambiguity for exactly this reason.[4] Tolkien's illustrations forThe Hobbit provide, in the words of the Tolkien scholarsWayne Hammond andChristina Scull, "backgrounds on which readers can paint their own mental pictures, directed by a text but not constrained by too specific an image".[5]
The 1938 American edition ofThe 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 ofThe Hobbit, that they should seek an artist "who can draw [human figures]" as his own drawings ofhobbits 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 hobbitBilbo might appear wearing boots, which he says Bilbo acquired inRivendell, but in the other illustrations he should be drawn with bare feet.[T 3]
In 1946, Tolkien voiced his objections toHorus Engels's illustrations for a German edition ofThe Hobbit. He described the work as having "certain merits", but "too 'Disnified' for my taste:Bilbo with a dribbling nose, andGandalf as a figure of vulgar fun rather than theOdinic 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. WhenAllen & Unwin were working with the artistMilein Cosman on illustrations forFarmer Giles of Ham in 1948, Tolkien described the sample drawings as resembling the work ofFeliks Topolski orEdward 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 nearOxfordshire; 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 illustrateFarmer Giles of Ham,Pauline Baynes. Tolkien expressed delight at the result, writing that the images were "more than illustrations, they are a collateral theme". He noted his friends' "polite" comment, that "they reduced my text to a commentary on the drawings."[T 6]
Tolkien met the Dutch artistCor Blok in 1961.[6] He liked the five paintings that he saw enough to purchase two of them. "Battle of the Hornburg II" hung in the front hall of his house to welcome visitors.[7] "The Dead Marshes" too found a place in his house; Blok later gave Tolkien a third painting, "Dunharrow", out of his 149The Lord of the Rings works.[8] Tolkien wrote to his publisher,Rayner Unwin, that he found Blok's paintings "most attractive", especially theHornburg image. He thought the other works "attractive as pictures but bad as illustrations"; he doubted whether any living "artist of talent ... would even try to depict the noble and the heroic", elements that he felt central to his work.[9] All the same, when asked in December 1962 who might be able to illustrate a deluxe edition ofThe Lord of the Rings (as a set of six volumes), Tolkien proposed Blok and Pauline Baynes.[10] Blok added in 2011 that the 20th century had created two stereotypes of "the noble and the heroic":totalitarian hero-figures such as the "Heroes of Labour" ofStalinist Art, or the "bulging muscles (and breasts)" of thesuperheroes of comic books. He commented that neither are suitable for illustrating Tolkien, and that the two approaches had made it hard for artists of other sorts to represent heroism, even on "a small scale".[11]
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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]
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 likeThe Silmarillion.[3]Pieter Collier, who edited a book of Cor Blok's illustrations forThe Lord of the Rings, commented that "Tolkien's criteria for excellence in illustration were as fastidious" as those for selecting "le mot juste in his writing."[9] The scholar of literature Aurore Noury comments that one of the paradoxes around Tolkien is that he hoped hissubcreated world would live on after him, but that he imposed strict requirements on anyone who sought to illustrate his novels.[12]
| 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 | Pauline Baynes Tolkien's own artwork |
| Illustrative with "noble or awe-inspiring" quality | In or alongside the text | Margrethe II of Denmark[14] Mary Fairburn |
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TheSwedish-speaking Finnish author, novelist, painter and illustratorTove Jansson, who had written and illustrated theMoomin books, illustrated Swedish and Finnishtranslations ofThe Hobbit. Among these isa very large Gollum for the 1962Swedish translation.[15] Tolkien was surprised to see a giant monster towering above Bilbo, but realised that the book did not say how small Gollum was.[c] He edited the second edition to state explicitly that Gollum was "a small, slimy creature".[16]
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][e] images. Sundmark suggests that the reason was that in the 1960s, a new, more realistic style became the norm for fantasy art.[18]
In May 1968, the English artistMary Fairburn sent Tolkien several illustrations ofThe 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 [ofThe 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 publisherRayner Unwin would take "some months" to decide whether to publish an illustrated edition ofThe 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 ofThe Fellowship of the Ring and the first four chapters ofThe Two Towers, the last being "Treebeard". Fairburn lost many of the illustrations in repeated house moves; nine survive,[f] 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]
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Pauline Baynes created the illustrations for some of Tolkien's minor works, such as the 1949Farmer Giles of Ham and the 1962The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.[21] In 1969, Tolkien's publisherAllen & Unwin commissioned her to paint "A Map of Middle-earth". Tolkien supplied her with copies of his draft maps forThe Lord of the Rings, and annotated her copy of his sonChristopher's 1954 map forThe 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 ofThe 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" inFarmer Giles of Ham.[13][26]
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Princess Margrethe (later QueenMargrethe II of Denmark), an accomplished and critically acclaimed painter, was inspired to create illustrations toThe Lord of the Rings in the early 1970s. Tolkien liked herwoodcut-style drawings, seeing in them a resemblance to the style of some of his own artwork.[27][14] In 1977, Margrethe's drawings were published in the Danish translation of the book, redrawn by the British artistEric Fraser.[T 8]
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While still in high school,Ted Nasmith painted some illustrations forThe Hobbit, and in 1972 mailed photographs of a selection of his artworks to Tolkien, including agouache ofThe Unexpected Party at the start ofThe Hobbit.[h] Tolkien responded by letter a few weeks later, both praising the work and commenting that the rendition ofBilbo Baggins seemed a little too childlike. This encouraged Nasmith to strive for a more literal interpretation of Tolkien's works.[28] He later created the illustrations for some editions ofThe Silmarillion.[29]
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The Japanese artistRyûichi Terashima [ja] (寺島竜一) made a set of drawings to illustrate Teiji Seta's 1965 translation ofThe Hobbit.[30] Robert Ellwood, writing inMythlore, admired the work, with the characters treated "with the seriousness to which the epic dimensions of Tolkien's work entitles them."[31] In his view, the characters "emerge in these sensitive line drawings as real, discrete personalities".[31]
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The children's book authorMaurice Sendak was invited to illustrate a deluxe edition ofThe Hobbit in 1967. He created one surviving sample drawing, of Gandalf with Bilbo smoking outside Bag End.[32] According to the artistTony DiTerlizzi in theLos Angeles Times, Sendak sent two drawings to Tolkien, the one that survives and one ofMirkwood'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."[33] 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 wantThe Hobbit to be thought of as a children's story.[33][i]
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Soviet era Russian illustrations ofThe Hobbit were according toOpen Culture "traditionally stylized ... angular, friendlier, almost cartoonish".[34] In the art historian Joel Merriner's view, the artists presented a distinctively non-Anglocentric vision of Middle-earth.[35]Mikhail Belomlinsky [ru]'s (Беломлинский, Михаил Самуилович) illustrations forNatalya Rakhmanova [ru]'s (Рахманова, Наталия Леонидовна) 1976 translation include the threeTrolls with full beards, dark clothes, and bare feet, holdingtankards and arguing over how to cook Bilbo.[34] The Hobbit is shown with hairy legs, as in other Russian illustrations, rather than just hairy feet; the Russian wordнога ("noga") can mean either "leg" or "foot".[36][37] Belomlinsky stated that his Bilbo character was based on the actorYevgeny Leonov, who he described as "good-natured, plump, with hairy legs."[38]
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In 1981, the Russian artistAlexander Korotich, known for his "Zuza" series of fairy tales, made a series ofscraperboard engravings ofThe Lord of the Rings. Many were lost; those that survived were eventually exhibited in 2013.[39]
In 1979, the Czech artist and animatorJiří Šalamoun [cz], known for his children's television seriesMaxipes Fík starring a cartoon dog,[40] illustrated Frantisek Vrba's translation ofThe 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."[41]
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The Ukrainian[42] artist Sergey Yuhimov (Сергей Юхимов, Sergei Iukhimov) illustrated a 1993 edition ofThe Lord of the Rings[43][44] in the style of theicons of theRussian Orthodox Church. This use of symbolism may have added layers of meaning to those already intended by Tolkien.[45] Open Culture has described the work as "vivid, stylistically Medieval, religious-icon-saturated".[46]
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Paul R. Gregory's Middle-earth paintings, created from 1978 onwards, have appeared on the covers of some 30 rock music albums;[47][48] the artist Ruth Lacon has however described Gregory's work as inaccurate, departing from Tolkien's text.[49] Tim and Greg Hildebrandt, usually calledthe Brothers Hildebrandt, were known especially for theirTolkien Calendars, which appeared between 1976 and 2006.[50][j] The illustratorJohn Howe said he got "a real spark" from the Hildebrandts' calendars, as they showed him that Tolkien's novels could be illustrated.[51]
Tom Loback contributed to the appreciation of Tolkien'slegendarium both through his artwork and with scholarly study.[52] The Tolkien scholarBradford Lee Eden commented that Loback's work was "unique" in featuring bothTolkien's scripts (Cirth andTengwar) andElvish languages (bothQuenya andSindarin[53]) in his art, and in his imitation of the style of medievalilluminated manuscripts.[54] His artistic vision ofThe Silmarillion has been celebrated alongside that of other Tolkien illustrators: in 1990,Mythlore set Loback and three others the task of illustrating the confrontation between the maker of theSilmarils,Fëanor, and his half-brotherFingolfin.[55]
Tolkien stated that he had a "special fascination" for illustratedbotany books, and for the "unfamiliar flora[s]" of new areas. He said he had not seen anything quite likeNiphredil, because "those imagined flowers are lit by a light" of another world; the flower would be "simply a delicate kin of asnowdrop".[T 10]The illustrator Graham A. Judd has preparedwoodcut illustrations to support his father, the botanistWalter S. Judd's 2017Flora of Middle-earth. According to the Tolkien scholar Martin Simonson, the woodcuts "combine accurate representations of the morphological features of most of the plants under study with symbolically rendered scenes from the legendarium, and they thus manage to convey the mixed essence of the book as such: art and science."[56][57]
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The American artistDonato Giancola describes himself as "classical-abstract-realist working with science fiction and fantasy".[58] His many paintings ofJ. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world have led Jeff LaSala, writing onTor.com, to label him "theCaravaggio of Middle-earth" and a "Tolkienneoclassicist".[59] LaSala suggests that Giancola's "The Tower of Cirith Ungol", with anOrc tormenting a nakedFrodo, could almost be by the Anglo-Swiss artistHenry Fuseli (1741–1825), known for his depictions of the supernatural.[59]
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The Tolkien illustratorsJohn Howe andAlan Lee became well-known by the end of the 20th century for their Middle-earth artwork — Lee for illustrated editions ofThe Hobbit andThe Lord of the Rings,[61][62] and Howe for the cover artwork to several Tolkien publications. Both men worked as concept artists in the creation ofPeter Jackson's 2001–2003The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, their designs leading directly to those in the films.[61][l] In 2004, Lee won anAcademy Award for Best Art Direction on the filmThe Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.[63] Nasmith had been invited to work as a concept artist for Peter Jackson's films but he had declined.[64]
Hans Velten suggests that bothTolkien and Lee were influenced by the visual style of theArts and Crafts pioneerWilliam Morris, given that Tolkien admired Morris's writing and artwork. Accordingly, Lee adapted the style of his Middle-earth illustrations to be more like Morris's work. Through Jackson's films, that brought Morris's style to a wider modern fantasy audience.[65]
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 ofElves,Dwarves,Orcs and Hobbits shared byTolkien fans and artists alike.[60] Some fan artists however draw inspiration from other sources; Anna Kulisz acknowledges that her painting ofArwen sewingAragorn's banner was inspired byEdmund Leighton's 1911 paintingStitching the Standard.[66]
The German illustratorAnke Eißmann had already become known for her Tolkien artwork, starting out as fan art,[67] such as for the German Tolkien Society'sDer Flammifer von Westernis from 1991.[68][69] She made numerous paintings of scenes fromThe Silmarillion.[70] Eißmann illustrated Timothy Furnish's 2016 bookHigh Towers and Strong Places: A Political History of Middle-earth in a way that, inMike Foster's opinion, had been influenced by Peter Jackson's films.[71]
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Jenny Dolfen has made a series ofwatercolour paintings of scenes fromThe Silmarillion.[72] 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.[73]Dolfen has won three awards fromThe Tolkien Society for her paintings, namely in 2014 for "Eärendil the Mariner", a painting ofEärendil, a character from the first beginnings ofTolkien's legendarium;[m] in 2018 for "The Hunt", a depiction ofFinrod Felagund going on a hunt with theFëanoreans Maedhros and Maglor in EasternBeleriand; and in 2020 theT-shirt design "The Professor", celebrating 50 years of The Tolkien Society, with Middle-earth characters and places within the outline of a pipe-smoking J. R. R. Tolkien.[72]
(Russian also does not distinguish between leg and foot, whence the hairy-legged hobbits of many a Russian illustration).
The exhibition presents individual illustrations for 'The Lord of the Rings' by J. R. R. Tolkien, created by artistAlexander 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 bookJ. R. R. Tolkien. Fairy tales by the publishing house 'Ural market', released in 1993.
His master's degree focused on the work of the Ukrainian Tolkien illustrator Sergei Iukhimov
