Quote:
Originally Posted by Hilde Bracegirdle
While most did an excellent job portraying a female heroine, it was quite amusing to see that some of the artists played that up a bit too much!  Rather takes away from the impact. |
re: this and
Thinlomien's equally adroit Rubens comment, ha ha ha
This, for instance
http://theartorder.com/wp-content/up...ni-Aledin1.jpg
reminds me rather disconcertingly of this
which I think is interesting, as actually the same archetype is at work (as seen also in Perseus and Andromeda) - hero riding winged monster plus girl plus threatening monster. It's just that Tolkien (who we know was a bit ambiguous about chivalric legend etc post 1066) has done his usual ton of inverting (as with Eowyn, the "knight", winning Faramir, the "rescued damsel") - so the winged rider is now malign and the damsel and rescuing hero are - plus the obligatory hobbit - simultaneous...
I always find the place of the headless Nazgul interesting in these too, and am a bit underwhelmed by all of the living, non-beheaded creatures shown here, many of which look to me too slavishly based on the film anyway. It's important to remember that this encounter involved two dead steeds, matching their two dead kings.