DTG Tolkien Seminar

Tolkien himself often sketched places and landscapes during the writing process in order to visualise his literary descriptions. His illustrations for The Hobbit as well as the iconic maps of Middle-earth attest to the high value he placed on visualising and concretising his secondary world. Soon after their publication, his works were also illustrated by other artists or inspired them to create paintings depicting scenes from Tolkien’s tales. Alan Lee and John Howe are probably the best-known visual artists of this category, and as ‘chief conceptual designers’ for Peter Jacksons films, they have shaped the vision of Middle-earth of millions of people – which is currently both reinforced and challenged by the Amazon series Rings of Power. Furthermore, there have always been artists who found their own approach to Tolkien’s work and sometimes create interpretations through visual representation (see, for example, Jay Johnstone’s painting ‘Isildur’).

The aim of this seminar is to bring together researchers from different disciplines and fields to explore the different approaches to visualising Tolkien’s work. Possible starting points for lectures could be:

• From Rankin & Bass’ The Hobbit (1977) and Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings (1978) to Amazon’s The Rings of Power (2022- ): The visualisation of Tolkien’s work on screen.
• International book illustrations
• ‘Stand-alone’ artworks from paintings to origami
• Evil and ugly: The representation of Orcs in film and performing arts.
• Noble and majestic: the depiction of the Elves in opposition to the ‘fairies’.
• Graphic novels (e.g. David Wenzel’s The Hobbit)
• Fan art
• Maps between structural element and ornament
• The representation of Middle-earth in video games (e.g. Lord of the Rings Online), board games, tabletops and RPG.
• Visualisation in Cosplay, LARP and Re-enactment