Tolkien's artwork was a key element of his creativity from the time when he began to write fiction. A professional
philologist
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of ...
,
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''.
From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson ...
prepared
a wide variety of materials to support his fiction, including illustrations for his
Middle-earth
Middle-earth is the Setting (narrative), setting of much of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy. The term is equivalent to the ''Midgard, Miðgarðr'' of Norse mythology and ''Middangeard'' in Old English works, including ''Beowulf'' ...
fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures.
The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...
books,
facsimile
A facsimile (from Latin ''fac simile'', "to make alike") is a copy or reproduction of an old book, manuscript, map, art print, or other item of historical value that is as true to the original source as possible. It differs from other forms of r ...
artefacts,
more or less "picturesque" maps,
calligraphy
Calligraphy () is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instruments. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an e ...
, and sketches and paintings from life. Some of his artworks combined several of these elements.
In his lifetime, some of his artworks were included in his novels ''
The Hobbit
''The Hobbit, or There and Back Again'' is a children's fantasy novel by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published in 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the ...
'' and ''
The Lord of the Rings
''The Lord of the Rings'' is an Epic (genre), epic high fantasy novel written by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book ''The Hobbit'' but eventually d ...
''; others were used on the covers of different editions of these books. Posthumously, collections of his artworks have been published, and academics have begun to evaluate him as an artist as well as an author.
Early work: sketches
Early in his life, Tolkien, taught by his mother, made many sketches and paintings from life. He drew with skill and depicted landscapes, buildings, trees, and flowers realistically. The one thing he admitted he could not draw was the human figure, where his attempts have been described as "cartoonish", as if "a different hand" was involved. The scholars
Wayne G. Hammond
Wayne Gordon Hammond (born February 11, 1953) is an American scholar known for his research and writings on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. Together with his wife Christina Scull, a fellow Tolkien scholar, they have jointly won Mythopoeic Scholars ...
and
Christina Scull
Christina Scull (born 6 March 1942 in Bristol, England) is a British researcher and writer best known for her books about the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, in collaboration with her husband Wayne G. Hammond who is also a Tolkien scholar. They have j ...
describe his 1912 ink drawing of a cottage in
Berkshire
Berkshire ( ; abbreviated ), officially the Royal County of Berkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Oxfordshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the north-east, Greater London ...
, "Quallington Carpenter", as "the most impressive" of these early works, its "sagging walls" and
thatched roof
Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge ('' Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...
"elaborately textured and shaded".
Illustrations for his books
Tolkien's illustrations for his books consisted of drawings, paintings, artefacts, more or less "picturesque" maps, and calligraphy. Hans Velten suggests that Tolkien's visual style was influenced by
William Morris
William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was an English textile designer, poet, artist, writer, and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditiona ...
, whose work Tolkien admired.
''The Hobbit''
Tolkien's illustrations contributed to the effectiveness of his writings, though much of his oeuvre remained unpublished in his lifetime. However, the first British edition of ''
The Hobbit
''The Hobbit, or There and Back Again'' is a children's fantasy novel by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published in 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the ...
'' in 1937 was published with ten of his black-and-white drawings. In addition, it had as its
frontispiece Tolkien's drawing ''The Hill: Hobbiton-across-the-Water''. It depicts
Bilbo Baggins
Bilbo Baggins (Westron: ''Bilba Labingi'') is the title character and protagonist of J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 novel ''The Hobbit'', a supporting character in ''The Lord of the Rings'', and the fictional narrator (along with Frodo Baggins) of m ...
's home village of
Hobbiton
The Shire is a region of J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth, described in ''The Lord of the Rings'' and other works. The Shire is an inland area settled exclusively by hobbits, the Shire-folk, largely sheltered from the goings-on in the ...
in
the Shire
The Shire is a region of J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth, described in ''The Lord of the Rings'' and other works. The Shire is an inland area settled exclusively by hobbits, the Shire-folk, largely sheltered from the goings-on in the ...
. The old mill, based on
the mill at Sarehole, and The Water are in the foreground, an
idealised English countryside in the middle distance, and The Hill and Bilbo's home
Bag End
Bag End is the underground dwelling of the Hobbits Bilbo Baggins, Bilbo and Frodo Baggins in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novels ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From there, both Bilbo and Frodo set out on their adventures, and bot ...
(tunnelled into The Hill) in the background.
The American edition replaced the frontispiece with Tolkien's full-colour watercolour painting of the same scene; this was then used in later impressions in England also.
[ The American edition had in addition four of his ]watercolour
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour ( Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting method"Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to the ...
paintings.
Tolkien's biographer John Garth notes the likeness of Tolkien's painting to the 1936 painting of Faringdon Folly by Lord Berners
Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 14th Baron Berners (18 September 188319 April 1950), also known as Gerald Tyrwhitt, was a British composer, novelist, painter, and aesthete. He was also known as Lord Berners.
Biography Early life and education
B ...
, used as an advertisement by Shell
Shell may refer to:
Architecture and design
* Shell (structure), a thin structure
** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses
Science Biology
* Seashell, a hard outer layer of a marine ani ...
, 1936. Garth comments that "the angles, proportions, shapes, and arrangement ... are strikingly similar, from the foreground building to the tree-crowned hill", despite the more horizontal painting. The image was well-known at the time Tolkien was writing ''The Hobbit
''The Hobbit, or There and Back Again'' is a children's fantasy novel by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published in 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the ...
'', as Shell had it painted on their oil delivery trucks. Berners's decision to construct the Faringdon Folly landmark, a tall tower atop a hill on his estate in South Oxfordshire, too, was controversial, and Tolkien is thought to have been very interested in the construction.
''The Lord of the Rings''
''The Book of Mazarbul''
Tolkien worked on making realistic artefacts to accompany his writing; he spent enormous effort on a facsimile
A facsimile (from Latin ''fac simile'', "to make alike") is a copy or reproduction of an old book, manuscript, map, art print, or other item of historical value that is as true to the original source as possible. It differs from other forms of r ...
''Book of Mazarbul'' to resemble the burnt, torn volume abandoned at the tomb of the Dwarf
Dwarf, dwarfs or dwarves may refer to:
Common uses
*Dwarf (folklore), a supernatural being from Germanic folklore
* Dwarf, a human or animal with dwarfism
Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities
* Dwarf (''Dungeons & Dragons''), a sh ...
-leader Balin in the subterranean realm of Moria
Moria may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Moria (Middle-earth), fictional location in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien
* ''Moria: The Dwarven City'', a 1984 fantasy role-playing game supplement
* Moria (1978 video game), ''Moria'' (1978 video gam ...
; in the story, the wizard Gandalf
Gandalf is a protagonist in J. R. R. Tolkien's novels ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. He is a Wizards (Middle-earth), wizard, one of the Istari order, and the leader of the Company of the Ring. Tolkien took the name "Gandalf" fr ...
finds the book and struggles to read out a substantial amount of the damaged text. Tolkien carefully stained the artefact's materials, actually burning in the burn-marks and tearing the paper to make it as authentic as possible. He anxiously wrote to his publisher Rayner Unwin asking about the reproduction of the artefact. The company however chose not to include an image of the book in the first edition, prompting Tolkien to remark that without it the text at the start of "The Bridge of Khazad-Dûm" was "rather absurd". Tolkien realized late in his life that he had made a mistake in the artefact: the text was written in runes, as if somehow the ''Book of Mazarbul'' had surprisingly survived thousands of years from the Third Age
In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the history of Arda, also called the history of Middle-earth, began when the Ainur entered Arda, following the creation events in the Ainulindalë and long ages of labour throughout Eä, the fictional un ...
, but the text itself was English, not the Common Speech that the book's scribe would have used.
''The Doors of Durin''
''The Lord of the Rings
''The Lord of the Rings'' is an Epic (genre), epic high fantasy novel written by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book ''The Hobbit'' but eventually d ...
'', despite Tolkien's best efforts, appeared with only one illustration other than its maps and calligraphy. This was ''The Doors of Durin'', in the first volume, ''The Fellowship of the Ring
''The Fellowship of the Ring'' is the first of three volumes of the epic novel ''The Lord of the Rings'' by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien; it is followed by ''The Two Towers'' and ''The Return of the King''. The action takes place in th ...
'', in 1954.
The Doors of Durin
In the fictional history of the world by J. R. R. Tolkien, Moria, also named Khazad-dûm, is an ancient subterranean complex in Middle-earth, comprising a vast labyrinthine network of tunnels, chambers, mines, and halls under the Misty Mountain ...
were the magical stone gates forming the western entrance to Moria; they were invisible when shut, but could be made visible by moonlight, whereupon their lettering and design, worked in ''mithril
Mithril is a fictional metal found in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings. It is described as resembling silver, but being stronger and lighter than steel. It was used to make armour, such as the helmets of the citadel guard of Minas Tirit ...
'', could be seen. That lettering in fact contained a welcome and the password, to those who could read the Feänorian script (Tengwar) and understand the Elvish language (Sindarin). Tolkien gave the design elegantly curled trees, mirroring the curls of the script. The design's clean lines cost Tolkien much effort; he made numerous sketches, each one a simplification of the last, to attain the apparent simplicity of the final design.
He wrote to Unwin that while he was drawing it in black ink "it should of course properly appear in white line on a black background, since it represents a silver line in the darkness. How does that appeal to the Production Department?"
The image was accompanied by a calligraphic caption in English, made to resemble "both the insular characters of Old English
Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
manuscript and the very Feänorian characters hat
A hat is a Headgear, head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorpor ...
it translates".
''The Silmarillion''
Tolkien did not live to see ''The Silmarillion
''The Silmarillion'' () is a book consisting of a collection of myths and stories in varying styles by the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien. It was edited, partly written, and published posthumously by his son Christopher in 1977, assisted by G ...
'' published, but he prepared images for it, including paintings of several symmetrical tile-like heraldic emblems for its kings and houses, and an actual Númenórean tile such as would have been rescued from the wreck of the civilisation of Númenor in Elendil
Elendil () is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. He is mentioned in ''The Lord of the Rings'', ''The Silmarillion'' and '' Unfinished Tales''. He was the father of Isildur and Anárion, last lord of Andúnië on the islan ...
's ships, and brought to Middle-earth. One of his emblems, for Lúthien Tinúviel, was used on the front cover of ''The Silmarillion'', and another five (for Fingolfin, Eärendil, Idril Celebrindal, Elwë, and Fëanor
Fëanor () is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's ''The Silmarillion''. He creates the Tengwar script, the palantír seeing-stones, and the three Silmarils, the skilfully forged jewels that give the book their name and theme, triggerin ...
) were used on the back cover.
Maps
Tolkien's maps
J. R. R. Tolkien's maps, depicting his fictional Middle-earth and other places in Tolkien's legendarium, his legendarium, helped him with plot development, guided the reader through his often complex stories, and contributed to the Impression o ...
, like his illustrations, helped his readers to enter his subcreated world of Middle-earth
Middle-earth is the Setting (narrative), setting of much of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy. The term is equivalent to the ''Midgard, Miðgarðr'' of Norse mythology and ''Middangeard'' in Old English works, including ''Beowulf'' ...
. ''The Hobbit'' had two maps; ''The Lord of the Rings'' had three, redrawn by his son Christopher Tolkien
Christopher John Reuel Tolkien (21 November 1924 – 16 January 2020) was an English and naturalised French academic editor and writer. The son of the author and academic J. R. R. Tolkien, Christopher edited 24 volumes based on his father's P ...
; ''The Silmarillion
''The Silmarillion'' () is a book consisting of a collection of myths and stories in varying styles by the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien. It was edited, partly written, and published posthumously by his son Christopher in 1977, assisted by G ...
'' had two. These served multiple purposes, first as guides to the author, helping to ensure consistency in the narrative, and later to the reader through the often complex routes taken by his characters.
Calligraphy
Tolkien's profession of philology
Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...
made him familiar with medieval illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared manuscript, document where the text is decorated with flourishes such as marginalia, borders and Miniature (illuminated manuscript), miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Churc ...
s; he imitated their style in his own calligraphy
Calligraphy () is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instruments. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an e ...
, an art which his mother had taught him. He applied this skill in his development of Middle-earth, creating alphabets such as Tengwar
The Tengwar () script is an artificial script, one of Tolkien's scripts, several scripts created by J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of ''The Lord of the Rings''. Within the context of Tolkien's fictional world, the Tengwar were invented by the ...
for his invented languages, especially Elvish.
Tolkien applied his skill in calligraphy to write the One Ring
The One Ring, also called the Ruling Ring and Isildur's Bane, is a central plot element in J. R. R. Tolkien's ''The Lord of the Rings'' (1954–55). It first appeared in the earlier story '' The Hobbit'' (1937) as a magic ring that grants the ...
's iconic inscription, in the Black Speech
The Black Speech is one of the fictional languages constructed by J. R. R. Tolkien for his legendarium, where it was spoken in the evil realm of Mordor. In the fiction, Tolkien describes the language as created by Sauron as a cons ...
of Mordor
In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional continent of Middle-earth, Mordor (; from Sindarin ''Black Land'' and Quenya ''Land of Shadow'') is a dark realm. It lay to the east of Gondor and the great river Anduin, and to the south of Mirkwood. Mount ...
, using Tengwar. The calligraphic inscription and a translation provided by Gandalf appear in ''The Fellowship of the Ring
''The Fellowship of the Ring'' is the first of three volumes of the epic novel ''The Lord of the Rings'' by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien; it is followed by ''The Two Towers'' and ''The Return of the King''. The action takes place in th ...
''.
Publication
In 1979, Tolkien's son Christopher
Christopher is the English language, English version of a Europe-wide name derived from the Greek language, Greek name Χριστόφορος (''Christophoros'' or ''Christoforos''). The constituent parts are Χριστός (''Christós''), "Jesus ...
began the process of bringing his father's artwork to the world's attention, beyond the images already published at that time on calendars, by editing ''Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien''. It had 48 plates, some in colour.
Two major books have addressed Tolkien's artwork: Hammond and Scull's 1995 collection of his paintings, '' J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist & Illustrator''; and Catherine McIlwaine's 2018 book accompanying the exhibition she curated at the Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1602 by Sir Thomas Bodley, it is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second-largest library in ...
, '' Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth''. Hammond and Scull have also published two further collections; ''The Art of The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien'' (2011) and ''The Art of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien'' (2015).
Analysis
Influences on Tolkien's artwork identified by scholars include Japonisme
''Japonisme'' is a French term that refers to the popularity and influence of Japanese art and design among a number of Western European artists in the nineteenth century following the Bakumatsu, forced reopening of foreign trade with Japan in 1 ...
, Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau ( ; ; ), Jugendstil and Sezessionstil in German, is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and ...
, Viking design, and William Morris
William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was an English textile designer, poet, artist, writer, and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditiona ...
. Japonisme is seen in stylised features like Tolkien's mountains, waves, and dragons
A dragon is a magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in Western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depict ...
. The influence of Morris's book ''Some Hints on Pattern Designing'', which Tolkien owned, appears in his designs for tiles and heraldic devices for ''The Silmarillion
''The Silmarillion'' () is a book consisting of a collection of myths and stories in varying styles by the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien. It was edited, partly written, and published posthumously by his son Christopher in 1977, assisted by G ...
''.
John R. Holmes, in the '' J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia'', states that given the struggle faced by literary critics to establish Tolkien's position as a writer, in the face of an enduringly hostile literary establishment, "the problem of evaluating Tolkien's status as a visual artist is even more daunting". The Tolkien scholar Patchen Mortimer similarly comments on the "contentious debate" about him, noting that his many readers find his books and "the attendant languages, histories, maps, artwork, and apocrypha" a huge accomplishment, while his critics "dismiss his work as childish, irrelevant, and worse". Mortimer observes that admirers and critics treat his work as "escapist and romantic", nothing to do with the 20th century. Mortimer calls this "an appalling oversight", writing that "Tolkien's project was as grand and avant-garde as those of Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...
or the Futurists, and his works are as suffused with the spirit of the age as any by Eliot, Joyce, or Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized f ...
".
The Tolkien scholars Jeffrey J. MacLeod and Anna Smol write that as an artist, Tolkien "straddled the amateur and professional fields", something he did also in his fiction and his scholarly studies. They note that he always had pencils, paper, coloured inks, chalks, and paintboxes to hand, and that his metaphors of creativity, as in his essay '' On Fairy-Stories'', constantly refer to colour, or as in his poem ''Mythopoeia
Mythopoeia (, ), or mythopoesis, is a subgenre of speculative fiction, and a theme in modern literature and film, where an artificial or fictionalized mythology is created by the writer of prose fiction, prose, poetry, or other literary forms. T ...
'', to the theme of light, something that the scholar of mythology and medieval literature Verlyn Flieger
Verlyn Flieger (born 1933) is an author, editor, and Professor Emerita in the Department of English at the University of Maryland at College Park, where she taught courses in comparative mythology, medieval literature, and the works of J. R. R. To ...
calls central to the whole mythology, seen throughout ''The Silmarillion''. MacLeod and Smol write that images and text "merge" in his creative work in four ways: in drafting his tales; in shaping his descriptions of landscapes; in his explorations of the visual appearance of text, as in his invented alphabets, his calligraphy, and his "JRRT" monogram
A monogram is a motif (visual arts), motif made by overlapping or combining two or more letters or other graphemes to form one symbol. Monograms are often made by combining the initials of an individual or a company, used as recognizable symbo ...
; and in his view of the relationship between illustration and fantasy. In short, they conclude, "Tolkien's art and his visual imagination should be considered an essential part of his writing and thinking."
Artists inspired by Tolkien's writing
Many artists and illustrators have created drawings, paintings, and book illustrations of Tolkien's Middle-earth. Tolkien was critical of some of the early attempts, but was happy to collaborate with the illustrator Pauline Baynes
Pauline Diana Baynes (9 September 1922 – 1 August 2008) was an English illustrator, author, and commercial artist. She contributed drawings and paintings to more than 200 books, mostly in the children's genre. She was the first illustrator ...
, who prepared the iconic map of Middle-earth. Among the many artists who have worked on Middle-earth projects are John Howe, Alan Lee, and Ted Nasmith
Ted Nasmith (born 1956) is a Canadian artist, illustrator and architectural renderer. He is best known as an illustrator of J. R. R. Tolkien's works ''The Hobbit'', ''The Lord of the Rings'' and ''The Silmarillion''. Tolkien praised and comment ...
; as well as illustrating books, Howe and Lee worked as conceptual artists for Peter Jackson
Sir Peter Robert Jackson (born 31 October 1961) is a New Zealand filmmaker. He is best known as the director, writer, and producer of the ''Lord of the Rings'' trilogy (2001–2003) and the ''Hobbit'' trilogy (2012–2014), both of which ar ...
's ''The Lord of the Rings'' film trilogy.
References
Primary
Secondary
Sources
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External links
Tolkien's paintings, illustrations, maps, and calligraphy
on the Tolkien Estate website
{{Hobbit
Artwork
A work of art, artwork, art piece, piece of art or art object is an artistic creation of aesthetic value. Except for "work of art", which may be used of any work regarded as art in its widest sense, including works from literature ...
Artwork
A work of art, artwork, art piece, piece of art or art object is an artistic creation of aesthetic value. Except for "work of art", which may be used of any work regarded as art in its widest sense, including works from literature ...
Artwork
A work of art, artwork, art piece, piece of art or art object is an artistic creation of aesthetic value. Except for "work of art", which may be used of any work regarded as art in its widest sense, including works from literature ...
Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''.
From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson ...
Visual art set in Middle-earth