Illustrated World of Tolkien Read online

  One day I was told about this epic and very heavy (literally) book called The Lord of the Rings. More than 1200 pages! I took it as a personal challenge at first. I remember some difficulties in reading all those names and genealogies. (I’m a very visual person: I need to create images in my head and I have attention issues when it comes to numbers and names.) But then the journey started. And I really wished I could have stayed in it forever. After that I read The Hobbit – a lovely adventure, deeper than it seemed at first.

  I had the luck to enjoy Tolkien books before the movies were released. I remember the excitement in 2001, when I went to watch The Fellowship of the Ring with my friends. I felt comfortable watching the movies, even if I didn’t like some of the changes from the book, because the world had been created on the works of John Howe and Alan Lee, two illustrators I’ve always venerated. Years later I had the privilege and honour to be published among them in a magazine. Sometimes dreams come true.

  “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread”, Bilbo says to Frodo. I’ve used this quote in a song I recently wrote for my band “Oniromantic”. This might give you a sense of how much Tolkien’s words are still in my mind, even today.

  When it comes to my illustrations, I always search for Tolkien’s descriptions of what I have to illustrate. I enjoy illustrating scenes or characters not present in movies or in too many other illustrations much more, because I can approach them using just my imagination, without any kind of visual memory.

  TREES OF THE VALAR

  MICHAEL FOREMAN

  KINGDOM OF THE VALAR DAVID DAY

  Michael Foreman was among the first artists commissioned for A Tolkien Bestiary and was believed to be the perfect illustrator for Valimar, the City of the Holy Ones. Michael had already illustrated 40 books, and would go on to publish over 200 more, twice winning the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal. It was his particular challenge to portray Laurelin the Golden and Telperion the White: the sacred Trees of the Valar that shone eternally with brilliant gold and silver light during the ages of bliss and contentment in the Undying Lands.

  MELKOR AND UNGOLIANT IN VALINOR

  MICHAEL FOREMAN

  SOMETHING DIFFERENT MICHAEL FOREMAN

  I have always enjoyed doing a wide range of work, fact and fiction, for both children and adults.

  When I got the chance to make images for Tolkien, I was thrilled. At around this time, in addition to writing my own stories, I was working on Anthologies of Stories by the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales and a collection of Old Testament Bible stories. Obviously, all dream projects for an illustrator.

  But here was something really different and challenging.

  To make it even more different I decided to change from my usual technique of watercolour and revert back to my art school days of painting in oils on canvas board. I thought the oils and texture of the canvas would give the work an extra depth and gravitas, a kind of homage to a very special writer.

  I can’t believe it was 40 years ago!

  VARDA OF THE STARS

  KIP RASMUSSEN

  VARDA

  The most beloved of the Valar among Elves and Dwarves was Varda, the maker of the stars. Her importance is shown in her large number of epithets: she is Elentári (star-queen) and Tintallë (star kindler), Quenya titles that translate as Elbereth and Gilthoniel in Sindarin. The white light of the stars is also evoked in other names, such as Fanuilos, meaning “Ever-white”.

  While her position as queen of the Valar and spouse to Manwë gives Varda a comparable position to the Greek Hera and the Norse Frigg, Tolkien’s main inspiration for Varda appears to have come from his own Christian tradition, in the figure of the Virgin Mary. Indeed, in The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien’s Elvish song “A Elbereth Gilthoniel” – meaning “O Varda the Star-kindler” in Sindarin – has been linked in theme and mood to the Roman Catholic devotional hymn to the Virgin that begins: “Hail, Queen of Heaven, the Ocean Star, / Guide of the wanderer.” Varda is called upon by Elves in extremis, just as Roman Catholics call on the Virgin to intercede in times of need.

  DRAWING IAN MILLER

  There is never a right place to say this, but drawing is so darn hard.

  ULMO, LORD OF WATERS

  MAURO MAZZARA

  ULMO

  A mighty Vala – Ulmo, Lord of Waters – is second only in his powers to Manwë, Lord of the Air. He dwells in the depths of the sea, rather than in Valinor, and has no spouse. He rarely takes on physical form, but when he does so it is often as a great warrior in silver-green armour with a foam-crested helm, terrible “as a mounting wave that strides to the land.” For all that, he is the Vala who is friendliest with the peoples of Middle-earth. He is also closely associated with music, blowing his horns the Ulumúri.

  Ulmo has a direct counterpart in the Greek god Poseidon and the Roman Neptune, who were depicted mounted on a giant wave in armour and a chariot drawn by sea horses and accompanied by the merman “old Triton blowing his wreathed horn.” In Celtic mythology, Ulmo is most akin to the sea god Manannán mac Lir, with his seaborne chariot. Manannán mac Lir features prominently in the legends of the Tuatha Dé Danaan, though without that god’s associations with the Underworld. In Norse mythology, Ulmo is most comparable to Njord.

  Interestingly, Ulmo’s name may remind us of the Christian martyr Saint Elmo, occasionally spelled Ulmo (d. 303 AD), the patron saint of mariners.

  MELKOR/MORGOTH

  In Tolkien’s creation story Ainulindalë, Melkor is the most powerful, inventive and magnificent of the angelic powers known as the Ainur but who, out of his desire to create on his account and in his own way, is corrupted and becomes Morgoth, the first Dark Lord of Middle-earth.

  In Tolkien’s legendarium, he most resembles the rebel archangel Lucifer of Christian tradition, especially as depicted in John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Just as the proud Lucifer questions the ways of God, so Melkor asks why the Ainur cannot be allowed to compose their own music and bring forth life and worlds of their own. Both Tolkien’s Melkor and Milton’s Lucifer are, in one light, heroic in their steadfast “courage never to submit or yield”; however, in truth both rebel angels are primarily motivated by overweening pride and envy.

  Setting himself up against the Valar, Melkor builds his fortress of Utumno in the Iron Mountains in the northern wastes of Middle-earth, and digs the foundations of his armoury and dungeon of Angband. Thereafter, Melkor wages five great wars against the Valar. These wars before the rising of the first Moon and Sun and the arrival of Men within the spheres of the world are comparable to the cosmological myths of the ancient Greeks, in which the unruly Titans of the Earth rise up to fight the gods. Ultimately the titanic forces of the Earth are conquered and forced underground, just as Melkor’s forces are defeated in those primeval wars with the Valar.

  For, as Tolkien explains, Melkor’s fall is also a moral one: “From splendour he fell through arrogance to contempt for all things…He began with the desire for Light, but when he could not possess it for himself alone, he descended through fire and wrath into a great burning, down into Darkness.” And so, Melkor – like Lucifer – brings corruption into the world. All evil that is, was or will be in Tolkien’s world has its beginning in Melkor, but in his beginnings Melkor, again like Lucifer, was not evil.

  Just as Melkor was Morgoth’s name before his flight from Valinor and return to Middle-earth, Lucifer was Satan’s name before his fall in a war of angels in heaven. It was an event recorded in the Gospel of Luke: “I saw Satan fall like lightning from Heaven.”

  Certainly, by the time of Dante and Milton, Lucifer (meaning “light-bringer”) and Satan (meaning “accuser” or “slanderer”) had become interchangeable as the name for the Devil. Furthermore, Lucifer, with his biblical epithet “Lucifer son of Morning”, was universally recognized as the name for the Morning Star, the brightest “star” in heaven, the planet Venus.

  It is of course ironic that Luc
ifer the bringer of light becomes Satan the bringer of darkness. It is doubly ironic in Tolkien’s world, where the Morning Star is the Silmaril carried into the heavens by Eärendil the Mariner, who in the final Great Battle leads the Host of Valar in a war of annihilation against the Dark Enemy and all his allies. And Morgoth, like Satan, is hurled out into the Abyss forever.

  MORGOTH

  ANDREW MOCKETT

  OROMË HUNTS THE MONSTERS OF MORGOTH

  KIP RASMUSSEN

  OROMË AND ARAWN

  Oromë, or Araw in Sindarin, is the huntsman of the Valar. He rides his white horse, Nahar, through the forests of Middle-earth as he hunts down the evil creatures of Melkor/Morgoth. Oromë’s name means “horn-blower”, and the sound of his horn, Valaróma, is a terror to all servants of darkness.

  It is fairly certain that Tolkien’s inspiration for Oromë was Arawn the Huntsman, a Celtic otherworld deity and the ruler of Annwn, an otherworld of youth and pleasure. Arawn provides an imaginative link between the fictional history of the Elves and the mythological world of the ancient Britons. The Welsh knew this god as Arawn the Huntsman, while Oromë was known to the Sindar (Grey Elves) as Araw the Huntsman. The Welsh Arawn was an immortal huntsman who like Araw/Oromë rode like the wind with horse and hounds through the forests of the mortal world. In the First Branch of the Mabinogi, Arawn the Huntsman befriends the mortal Welsh king, Pwyll, who travels into the immortal Otherworld of Annwn. In the mortal lands of Middle-earth, Araw/Oromë the Huntsman befriends three Elven kings (Ingwë, Finwë and Elwë), who travel to the immortal Undying Lands of Aman.

  THE ASTRONOMICAL AND THE MINUTE KIP RASMUSSEN

  It is almost impossible to describe everything that can inspire an illustrator about Tolkien’s work, but here are a few of these elements.

  His work, for me, starts with the poetry of the imagery. It seems fitting that an author who forged a world in which to place the languages he was creating would write prose so profoundly evocative. We know Tolkien spent much effort in creating poetry proper, but it is the beauty of nearly every prose paragraph that inspires my work. Who else could evoke such visual power in so few words? Here are passages which astound the reader with their economy and magic: the Elves would awaken to the sound of “water falling over stone”, and Yavanna would stand in the form of a great tree “crowned with the sun”, and the monsters of Morgoth would hunt “silently with many eyes”. These brief descriptions are like lightning to an illustrator’s creativity.

  Moreover, to a visual artist, the scope of the creation is not only astronomical but also minute. What mind can sweep from the creation of the cosmos of Eru to the voice of the waters of Ulmo? All of creation is worthy to Tolkien, from the stars of Varda to the flowers of Samwise the gardener. Trees and moss, stars and song, smithcraft and shipbuilding, architecture, rivers – all are important to that limitless mind.

  TULKAS THE STRONG

  The most valiant and warlike of the Valar, whose name in Quenya simply means “strong”. In this respect, Tulkas has a passing resemblance to the Norse god Magni, a name that similarly means strong. However, a closer counterpart can be found in the Greco-Roman Heracles (Hercules), whose primary attribute is his superhuman strength. Both are depicted as supreme wrestlers.

  Both Tulkas and Heracles play a key role in cosmic, primordial struggles. Heracles becomes the champion of the gods in the Gigantomachy, killing the giants with his “rushing arrows”. Similarly, Tulkas is the “Champion of Valinor”, wrestling and overcoming Melkor, after long ages in which the Valar have been unable to contain his powers.

  ARDA’S POWERS AT WAR DAVID DAY

  In these images of creation and the shaping of the world, Kip Rasmussen and Mauro Mazzara have excelled in providing spectacular scenes in this titanic struggle between the Powers of Arda. Through their vivid art, we experience something of Tolkien’s belief in the importance of the dramatic rendering of this epic struggle between forces that are steadfast and morally upright against those that are corrupted by the pursuit of power for its own sake alone. Through their portrayals of the heroes and heroines of The Silmarillion in particular, Rasmussen and Mazzara have helped fulfill Tolkien’s wish for “other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama” that may be “linked to the majestic whole” of his legendarium.

  TULKAS CHAINING MORGOTH

  KIP RASMUSSEN

  MAIAR SPIRITS OF THE SUN, MOON, WAVES AND CALMS

  JAROSLAV BRADAC

  MAIAR

  The lesser angelic powers who descend from the Timeless Halls into Tolkien’s world of Arda as servants of the more powerful Valar. The Maiar sometimes have counterparts among the gods, spirits, heroes and nymphs of Greek and Norse mythology but the resemblances are not always clear cut. Thus Eönwë, the herald of Manwë, king of the Valar, is comparable to the Greek Hermes, the herald of Zeus, but has little of the multifaceted, not to say mercurial, nature of Hermes who, among many other roles, also guided the dead to the underworld.

  IMAGINING THE DEMIGODS DAVID DAY

  Just as Jaroslav Bradac’s original line drawings of the Valar were comparable in power and grace to the ancient Greco-Roman and Norse gods; so too Jaroslav’s drawings of Maiar spirits had much in common with the demigods and nature spirits of those ancient civilizations. Over the decades many other artists have given us dramatically different interpretations of the Maiar spirits; especially those who entered Arda and aligned themselves with Morgoth the Dark Enemy. These evil Maiar spirits became manifest in monstrous beings, such as the Balrogs, Werewolves, Vampires and Great Spiders.

  However, the greatest of the evil Maiar lieutenants of Morgoth to survive the downfall War of Wrath in the First Age was the one known as Gauthar the Cruel. In the Second and Third Ages this was the evil Maia spirit who became the new Dark Lord of Middle-earth. This was Sauron the Ring Lord who established a dark kingdom in the land of Mordor.

  SAURON AND THE EVIL EYE

  Sauron is the original Maia spirit of Valinor who was corrupted by Morgoth the Dark Enemy. In the First Age upon Middle-earth, he became known as Sauron Gauthar, meaning “Dread Abomination”, or Sauron the Cruel. By the Second Age, Sauron would rise up to become Morgoth’s successor as the new Dark Lord of Middle-earth.

  In The Lord of the Rings, the fiery “Eye of Sauron” is variously described as the “Red Eye”, the “Evil Eye”, the “Lidless Eye”, and the “Great Eye”. Tolkien developed this malign manifestation in part out of the tradition of the Evil Eye and imbued it with such a hallucinatory, elemental quality that it has the power to disturb and even terrify the reader and it is the most common visible manifestation of the spirit of the Dark Lord of Mordor in the Third Age.

  The Evil Eye was a widespread superstition throughout human history, recorded in ancient Greek and Roman texts as well as many religious scriptures, from the Koran to the Bible, by which an individual, often a sorcerer, has the power to injure or harm by means of a simple, but baleful, glance. Attempts to ward off the power of the evil eye have resulted in the creation of talismans featuring a staring eye, which is supposed to reflect back the malicious gaze on the evildoer. Such talismans are found painted on the prows of boats and ships, on houses and vehicles, and are worn as beads and jewels in a multitude of cultures from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. In all cultures, eyes are believed to have special powers and are said to be windows into the soul.

  There is one important mythological source for the Eye. More generally, Odin in his guise as necromancer was the mythological figure who most obviously informed the identity of Sauron the Necromancer and, not coincidentally, was also known as the One-Eyed God. In the Norse canon, Odin sacrificed one of his eyes in exchange for one deep draft from Mirmir’s Well, the “Well of Secret Knowledge”. Thereafter, Odin – like Sauron – was able to consult with and command wraiths, phantoms and spirits of the dead.

  So Tolkien’s description of the evil Eye of Sauron gives us considerable insight into the Dark Lord himself:
“The Eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself glazed, yellow as a cat’s, watchful and intent, and the black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing.” This last phrase, “a window into nothing”, reflects Tolkien’s Roman Catholic, Augustinian philosophical standpoint that evil is essentially the absence of good, and that ultimately evil in itself is a soul-destroying nothingness.

  It is difficult to determine whether the spirit of Sauron, after his defeat at the end of the Second Age, was ever able to regain an actual material form – a disembodiment, perhaps, that makes his malign power seem all the greater. Late in the last century of the Third Age, we are given one fearful encounter describing the Dark Lord’s four-fingered “Black Hand”, but whether this is a phantom shape or the actual material form of the Dark Lord is open to debate. Nonetheless we have it on the authority of Tolkien’s son and executor, Christopher Tolkien, that in the War of the Ring it is the Eye that was the Dark Lord’s primary manifestation: “father had come to identify the Eye of Barad-dûr with the mind and will of Sauron.”

  BARAD-DÛR

  JOHN BLANCHE

  SAURON IN DEFEAT

  MAURO MAZZARA

  SAURON IN DEFEAT MAURO MAZZARA

  The movies got us used to the fact that Sauron never shows his face. I admit that it’s a very good choice for the big screen adaptation, but I really enjoyed drawing the face of this character, as Tolkien describes him as being “beautiful, with fair colours”…I imagined a kind of “über-elf”, distorted by the power of the ring. The close-up of the burnt face remains my favourite part, obviously!