After seeing this tweet from @[email protected] showing J.R.R. Tolkien's original illustrations for "The Hobbit" https://twitter.com/41Strange/status/932774047233884161
I researched and found they were in fact coloured by H.E. Riddett for the 1976 #TheHobbit Calendar:
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/H.E._Riddett
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/The_Hobbit_Calendar_1976
#tolkien #illustration #art #colourart #colorart #colours #colors
That inspired me to track down good quality scans of the original J.R.R. Tolkien ink illustrations for the first edition of The Hobbit.
What a difference H.E. Riddett's colours made!
This is not to say that Tolkien didn't also produce wonderful colour illustrations!
Here's a selection of scenes he painted for early colour editions of #TheHobbit.
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/File:J.R.R._Tolkien_-_The_Hill_-_Hobbiton-across-the-Water_(Colored).jpg
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/File:J.R.R._Tolkien_-_Bilbo_woke_with_the_early_sun_in_his_eyes.jpg
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/File:J.R.R._Tolkien_-_Conversation_with_Smaug_(large).jpg
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/File:J.R.R._Tolkien_-_Bilbo_comes_to_the_Huts_of_the_Raft-elves_(II).jpg
#tolkien #illustrations #art #painting #paintings #middleEarth
If you'd like to see more of how #Tolkien visualised and illustrated #MiddleEarth, there's coffee table books of his artwork, the contents of which are all over Pinterest, if you search.
This Tumblr post collects his painted illustrations and heraldic devices for The Silmarillion:
http://hackedmotionsensors.tumblr.com/post/76168894163/ljonsyllver-tolkiens-own-paintings-for-the
Oh and, if you're wondering why Tolkien's giant eagle looks so much more realistic than his almost cartoon-like dragon, it's because he used a painting by Archibald Thorburn as reference.
Great blog post about that and the inspiration for many other fictional birds here:
http://willoughbyart.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/top-10-fictional-birds-based-on-real.html
#Tolkien #illustration #illustration #art #reference #referenceImage #birds #fantasy #fantasyanimals
When @[email protected] commented on how Hobbiton looks more like Portugal than rural England: https://twitter.com/tombomp/status/933087475488215040
I researched to see if #Tolkien had visited Provence or been inspired by Cézanne and Van Gogh.
Turns out his cited inspiration was a 1911 walking holiday in Switzerland.
This immediately made me think of the Swiss landscapes of Cuno Amiet:
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/minntenn/cuno-amiet/
I feel like I've had completely the wrong geographical reference and colour palette for #MiddleEarth all this time!
It's really quite striking when you put Amiet's hill near Oschwand, 1926 next to #Tolkien's hill from Hobbiton-across-the Water, c.1937.
Not that Tolkien was inspired by Amiet's art, but by the landscape that inspired them both.
#art #middleEarth #TheHobbit https://mastodon.art/media/p28IxBOKUmTm4VggsVI
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