posted on 25 May 2016

J.R.R. Tolkien

I don't need to spend any time convincing you of the story telling qualities of Tolkien but you might just be a little surprised to find him featuring in the section dedicated to illustrators. When I first read The Hobbit it was in a paperback that didn't have the illustrations that are now commonplace in most editions and so it wasn't until later that I came across these fabulous embellishments.

Tolkien was a keen amateur artist and kept lots of his drawings and watercolours from his childhood until his old age. He was a meticulous artist in the way he planned and worked on his drawings and there are plenty of them beyond those he produced for The Hobbit ( the excellent Brain Pickings website has a good feature on these which can be accessed here).

However, for me, it is these drawings and watercolours for The Hobbit that I love most and which display Tolkien's skills as an illutrator most effectively. The story itself is both atmospheric and rooted in the geography of the world he created. It was clearly important to the impact of the story that the reader should believe in the existence of locations like Hobbiton and Rivendell and the drawing  give these places a real existence and help confirm the picture built-up by the reader from the text itself.

Tolkien's style can be crude but part of the appeal is its naivety - the colours in the painting are beautifully strong and clearly delineated and the black and white drawings are functional in helping carry the story. My personal favourite is the painting of Hobbiton that appears within the first few pages of the text and it reminds me very much of the approach to Malvern from off the M5. I doubt that this was the real inspiration but it is a distilation of the idealised British countryside typical of Worcester or Herefordshire. Not far behind in terms of impact is his depiction of the dragon Smaug which is now really quite iconic- there will be many people who now see dragons entirely through the lens of Tolkien's drawing.

Here at The Letterpress Project we are very keen on books that have maps on the inside front cover of any adventure story and Tolkien really delivers a gem. Maps are one of his great strengths as a storyteller because they show just how much detail has gone into the planning and conceptualisation of the story - the addition of runic language that annotate the map confers a little touch of bogus authenticity that tells you you are in good hands.

I think there are now some pretty good books that focus specifically on Tolkien as an artist but I prefer to see him in the context of his books, as an illustrator. Enjoy!

Terry Potter

May 2016