Other than The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, it seems to me that our beloved J.R.R.Tolkien’s stories of Middle earth are really quite dark. The Silmarillion of course had moments of great triumph, like when the Valar finally finally overthrow Morgoth, but overall one would have to say that the tone was primarily tragic. In The Children of Hurin, however, it’s pretty hard to find any light. There are moments of triumph for Turin, the ultimate when he slays Glaurung, but things are heavily slanted toward the dower side. Whether it is Turin either causing the death of innocents, or killing them himself, or the ultimate tragedy of his incestuous relationship with his sister, things always seem to go very wrong. Tragedy of course is a great vehicle for art, but I, at least, miss the moments of joy in the LOTR. For me, although I enjoy these other stories in themselves, my interest seems to be more weighted toward the imagery of Tolkien’s darker side.
I want to apologize to all of you in Tolkien Land, and Etching Land for my recent absence of posts, on this site dedicated to etchings inspired by the great J.R.R.Tolkien. It’s a long and tragic tale of computer problems (is it just me, or are these things always going haywire?), that prevented me from getting on the net. Anyway, things seem to be working now, and I intend to make up for lost time by making several posts in the near future.
During the recent hiatus between fall and winter open printmaking sessions at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts where I do my printing, I decided to get away from etching for a while and do some drawing. Four are finished, with one well underway. I will be posting them just as soon as I can have them photographed.
I’d like to thank Borko for his nice comment about my Balrog etching.
The graphic image for this web site of etchings inspired by Professor J.R.R.Tolkien is itself an original etching created solely for this purpose. I felt this would best relate to,
and exemplify the rest of the work. Also, rather than focus on a single episode like Eowyn battling the Lord of the Nazguls, or Gandalf and the Balrog on the Bridge of Khazad-dum, I tried to find an image that would come close, at least, to the heart of the Lord of the Rings. Although this is probably an impossible task given the extreme complexity of the tale, Sauron grasping for the Ring, comes as close as anything I can think of. I printed the copper plate in various ways, lighter, darker, and then had the proofs scanned. After trying various versions on mock-ups of my site, I decided to go with a lighter version as it did not compete with the primary images being displayed. I find the result to work quite well, and I’m glad now that I spent the extra time to do the etching.
I would like to give a very big thanks (unfortunately belated, as my computer was on the fritz) to Pieter Collier for publishing some of my etchings, devoted to the work of J.R.R.Tolkien, on his excellent web site The Tolkien Library. There is also an interview he did with me, in which I now feel I was too long winded, but which does contain some worthwhile bits here and there.When I first went to The Tolkien Library I had no idea of the amount of work that has been published by Tolkien. There are numerous books other than the ones we are all familiar with, many poems, articles, as well as many scholarly works one can obtain, and this web site has a very extensive list of the Professor’s work. I found the info on his children’s books, and books with the author’s own illustrations particularly interesting. There’s a new edition of “Mr. Bliss”, the history of which is given by Mr.Collier, that looks really delightful.Another thing that seems very interesting, I would think especially to Tolkien scholars, is The Tolkien Library’s section on scarce and rare Tolkien books. It’s very interesting to see and read about these old editions.
My project, to which this web site is dedicated, of creating a very large suite of original etchings based on the work of J.R.R.Tolkien, is greatly supported by the knowledge I have gained viewing the wonderful web site, The Encyclopedia of Arda. I told a friend of mine, “Anything you want to know about Tolkien , it’s on this site”. Of course, this is an exaggeration, as there is always more to learn about Tolkien’s universe, but the Encyclopedia of Arda is certainly one of the best resources.
LINKS:
Encyclopedia of Arda
This new category of my blog, devoted to original etchings based on the writing of J.R.R.Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, will contain my views on any and all topics that cross my gourd related to the good Professor.