Rarely Seen Paintings by J.R.R. Tolkien | Hacker News Reader

Rarely Seen Paintings by J.R.R. Tolkien

smithsonianmag.com

319 pointsbryanrasmussen60 comments

Is there some thing new somewhere? Each of the paintings in the article I've seen before in various copies of the books themselves.

Ah it's on the Painting section of the Tolkien Estate: https://www.tolkienestate.com/painting/

Follow the link to the website and you'll see several that, at least, I hadn't seen before.

Yea the ones in the articles have been used as cover art for certain editions of his books.

The images on the website are rarely published.

> The images on the website are rarely published.

According to the article, some of them never been published before.

> According to an emailed statement, the site features 12 previously unpublished items

Tolkien Estate is acting like copyright trolls lately so not surprised the articles don't dare to rehost them

I've been listening to the audiobook of the Silmarillion while on a run or doing chores. At first I thought "this has to be the worst idea" since I found myself going back constantly and re-listening to bits to find out who was being referenced in some long description or I'd lose track of what happened entirely.

However, I've since decided that this must be the best way to enjoy all the little detail. Each re-listen I've understood more and more. It's a strange way to enjoy the work but I honestly think the creation myth at the beginning is really well written and had I just read the book I may have read it the once, retained some of it, referred back to it maybe, and moved on to the rest of the tale.

Slow going but commenting just because you may enjoy this too if you've made it to this thread. I haven't read the rest of the books since I was a kid so priming myself thoroughly for the re-read with Silmarillion first seems like it's going to have a nice payoff as rich as the world is.

I first read the Silmarillion 20 years ago and then re-read it last year. What struck me is how short it actually is, compared to the sense of scale that I remembered. Of course the Silmarillion is cherrypicked from decades of manuscripts, so I guess it shouldn't be surprising that it conveys a sense of mythological world-building depth beyond its page count.

Do you recommend reading it or is there a risk it "destroys the mysticism"?

Usually I find the worst thing to do in fantasy is to read up on the lore.

It's a long time since I read it, but as I remember it there is 0 chance of the mysticism being destroyed! It's basically the ur mythos of his world.

Oh no, it's definitely enhances! It's not merely descriptive of what happened, and it doesn't break the fourth wall or step out of the story. As much as LOTR was the tale of the Ring collected, compiled, and related essentially by Bilbo and Frodo, The Silmarillion is the creation stories assembled by the elves and first men. It's very in-world.

> It's very in-world.

Thanks that is what I wanted to hear.

There is a hike here In South Africa called the Amathole trail [0]. It is a Gruelling 106km hike.

Fans of Tolkien say the hike and Forrest in the Amathole mountains [1] could be straight out of middle earth.

[0] https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/lifestyle/travel/20...

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amathole_Mountains

I felt very similar feelings hiking in New Zealand south island, specifically Routeburn track (one of my favourite bushwalks to date)

Funny that

Such lovely, whimsical paintings. Tolkien's work is such a gift to the rest of us. I recall picking up The Two Towers in 6th grade and was totally hooked by the first sentence.

My 6th grade teacher had been reading "The Hobbit" to the class a page at a time, and was shocked to discover me reading TTT. Of course, I didn't know it was a trilogy at the time.

What a weird coincidence, I was just searching this last night. There's a particular tolkien painting I'd love to buy a print of [0], but it doesn't seem to be sold anywhere.

The official tolkien shop only has 3 or so of his hobbit illustrations and a bunch done by other artists.

Feel like they're missing out on a lot of money.

[0] https://1konag4dcg12gdvjc12ot2wu-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-...

I love Tolkien's depiction of Smaug. He looks... cartoony, like Singe from Dragon's Lair. Everything is evocative of pure imagination. I guess when you fought in WWI and have seen how bleak the real world is, an imaginary world of whimsy and bright colors is a more cheerful place for your mind to inhabit from time to time.

Despite the Peter Jackson movies, The Hobbit was actually written as a childrens' story rather than a grand epic.

I'd wager a lot that the cartoonish nature of his pictures was an accurate reflection of how he saw that story.

If you haven't seen the 1977 animated Hobbit film (often called Rankin-Bass after it's creators), you're doing yourself a disservice.

Online you can find a PDF detailing the differences between the pre-LotR Hobbit and the second edition (Tolkien rewrote comparatively small parts of the Hobbit to make it fit and actually didn't expect the publisher to release a second edition with the changes, hence the preface to the Lord of the Rings and Bilbo himself apologizing for "a different version of the story").

You can even see the "Hobbit-esque" writing at the beginning of LotR, remember the fox that sees them walking and talks to himself about it. The last we see of humanish animals.

Trivia: The word mithril didn't exist in the original edition of the Hobbit, and was added after LOTR was published.

> hence ... Bilbo himself apologizing for "a different version of the story"

I thought that showed the Ring's effect on Bilbo, something Gandalf talked about too, and which is important to LOTR.

That was Tolkien's clever trick for his rewrite - the "original" story was what Bilbo wrote down at the time (the "present") - the new edition was what was later edited in by Bilbo or Frodo as what really went down (after everything had been revealed in LotR.

I understand your claim. How do we know which explanation, or whether another explanation, is true?

Again, another strong explanation for the change in Bilbo's story: It was a demonstration of the corruption caused by the Ring and its effects on hobbits, an effect corroborated by Gollum's story about how Gollum acquired the Ring - all as explained by Gandalf.

You can actually purchase facsimile editions of the original (pre-LOTR) published version of The Hobbit.

I'm a fan of Jackson's LOTR, but his Hobbit was almost a complete failure (in my opinion). Radical departures from feel, and yes, plot, of the book.

You can read the book in half the running time of the movies. There's a lot of padding and pointless meandering in them. It should never have been a trilogy.

You can listen to the audiobook in just under six hours, compared to the theatrical release of the trilogy which is nearly eight, or the extended release which is over eight and a half hours.

While I think the hobbit movies were very bad, I've never agreed with this take. Mostly the movies pull details out of the lord of the rings appendixes and fill in gaps in the plot of the hobbit that would honestly be quite strange in a modern film. Gandalf just screwing off for no apparent reason for half the film would be confusing and weird (honestly it was in the book too, but it's too whimsical to be a bother). And a lot of people complained about Legolas being there but other people would complain if he wasn't, or if he was just a no name member of the mob like the elves were in the book.

There's nothing inherently wrong with an adapted version of the hobbit that fits in better to lord of the rings imo, it's just that this particular try at it was a disaster.

Wow, that really makes those movies pointless! And how much more does it cost to watch the movies compared with buying the book?

You can have an all-time great book or spend more time and money on decent (ok, awful IMHO) movie.

If you look at the word count and movie runtime of LOTR, then compare it to the word count of The Hobbit, you'll find that a similar treatment of The Hobbit would result in probably around 90 minutes of film.

There are complications with that assessment, but 90 minutes would fit quite well with the fact that it's supposed to be a children's story. The Rankin Bass animated version left out a few key plot points (particularly the arkenstone subplot) that could be recovered with a 90 minute runtime. I could also see the possibility of having a 2 hour extended edition

I found the LOTR movies completely missed the essence and magic of the books and I see them as little more than cliche-ridden hollywood garbage. I can't possibly imagine Tolkien being happy about such depraved debasement of his life's work.

The only adaptation of Tolkien's work that I think does justice to it and captures part of Tolkien's spark, are the albums of the Austrian black metal band "Summoning".

Watching Leg-o-Lamb surf in the battle of Helm's Deep kinda ripped me back to "this is just a movie". Jackson should just snip that out and burn the footage of it.

These days, I tend to just put LotR on with the sound off, as moving wallpaper.

You should try the Russian subtitling of Helm’s Deep for some comic relief

In the "Letters of Tolkien" you see a couple of references to screen-plays where he's very critical of changes, condensing, etc. But also a memorable entry in which he says:

"Stanley & I have agreed on our policy : Art or Cash. Either very profitable terms indeed; or absolute author’s veto on objectionable features or alterations."

Tolkien sold the movie rights to both the Hobbit and LOTR in 1969 for £100,000.

Source is an interesting interview with Christopher Tolkien in Le Monde: https://web.archive.org/web/20180709130054/https://www.world...

... which is translated from the French original: https://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2012/07/05/tolkien-l-...

Finally somebody other than me who is aware of Summoning. They are awesome. "The Passing of the Grey Company", "Land of the Dead", "Mirdautas Vras", "Nightshade Forests" and "Kor" all evoke specific scenes from the books for me.

If you haven't seen any of the fan edits you are doing yourself a huge diservice. Last one I saw was the M4 edit which went as far as redoing the CGI.

There are brilliant performances hidden amongst the studio meddling.

where can you find these?

I agree, but I'd also like to defend Jackson on this one. He was brought in after Del Toro dropped out and the movies had been in production for years already. He had no prep time and seemed to exist on little sleep for years. You can see some of this in the behind the scenes recordings/interviews they did. I have a feeling they were only as good as they were because of him. Regardless, they were disappointing.

Did not know this.

True fact I learned only this week, from another HN story: Topcraft, the Japanese firm that did the animation for the Rankin/Bass Hobbit and ROTK, ultimately broke up and a bunch of its team went on to help form Studio Ghibli; several of the animators on The Hobbit went on to work on classic Miyazaki films.

I'm not sure cartoony is the right word, but it's definitely fantastical.

One thing that's been lost with high fidelity video games - everything looks pseudo realistic, which kind of ruins any 'fantasy' element.

> Rarely Seen Paintings by Tolkien Portray a Lush ‘Lord of the Rings’ Landscape

That's a great prompt for DALL-E 2! Someone should try it and compare the results to the real drawings

Maybe interesting anecdote: the only other illustrations that supposedly met with Tolkien's approval were done by the now Danish queen Margrethe.

I don't think it is known what he thought of Tove Janssons illustrations for Bilbo for example, so I think that is just a myth.

Tolkien would have been a good friend. Maybe he was Tom Bombadil. I mean, because that happens so often, the author is mirrored in a character. Tom is kind and generous, but with a serious hidden side. Deep and a bit scary.

Maybe Tolkien had a hidden side. I'd like to have known him. His craft, 1000x polished, we see that. But the man. To talk with him. That must be honey and cream.

Tolkien, Lewis and Lovecraft all were big fans of Dunsany. He was all about the deep, strange, and a bit scary. He talked about the elves, these true aliens, and their world. He dipped into the mythology of the isles. So rich.

You see that in British scifi too.

Tolkien saw himself and his wife as Beren and Luthien, I believe.

Some see Bombadil as God visiting his creation, others as a pre-Christian god.

Bombadil is wholly unaffected by the Ring if you recall and is able to both notice it and see thru Frodo being invisible.

Edit to add: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/jrr-tolkiens-grave

Dunsany is wonderful too. The King of Elfland’s Daughter is charming and a masterpiece. Oh to go beyond the fields we know.

Sitting some years ago in the ancient tavern at Over, one afternoon in Spring, I was waiting, as was my custom, for something strange to happen. In this I was not always disappointed for the very curious leaded panes of that tavern, facing the sea, let a light into the low-ceilinged room so mysterious, particularly at evening, that it somehow seemed to affect the events within. Be that as it may, I have seen strange things in that tavern and heard stranger things told.

In case anybody is compiling a reading list, George McDonald too. Back when they spelled fantasy with a ph.

Link to the actual paintings: https://www.tolkienestate.com/painting/

Such lovely style of painting. By looking at them without knowing the artist, I'd assume it's from someone who's really positive towards life.

Tolkien's essay On Fairy-stories describes specific theory and concept about the role in life of fantasy fiction, myth, etc., which includes positive aspects and makes sense of the painting aesthetic.

This is from March and not the other post going around with a look at the drawings in the book today:

Tolkien’s Little-Known Original Drawings for the First Edition of “The Hobbit” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31762392

Very nice. Also of interest with discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30764886

I came expecting horrendous kitsch, and left feeling pleasantly surprised..

These were in the 50th anniversary hardcover edition of The Hobbit.

I wonder why most(?) editions of The Hobbit don't have them though. They're wonderful and arguably a part of the work. Omitting them seems like such a shame to me.

They are in other hardback editions (see the 1966 printings for sale on Etsy among other places)

Some of the sigils on the Tolkien estate website were on the slipcases of the 1973 Ballantine paperback release of LoTR (their covers might look familiar too)

His drawing skill is surely impressive

I’m surprised they don’t sell prints.

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