Quote:
Originally Posted by Mithalwen
I suppose Galadriel is the only absolutely certain one and as you point out the hairstyle elides the issue. By being polite do you mean in not mentioning the ears or about the picture generally?
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I was referring specifically to The Squatter of Amon Rûdh’s wish to see images that corresponded to Tolkien’s own visions of his work and his wondering if she drew a balrog.
The article makes it clear that Tolkien was very enthusiastic about Fairburn’s work in general, but does not say that he approved every detail of every illustration which he saw, and can say nothing about the illustrations he didn’t see.
I imagine Tolkien fans saying, for example, that because Tolkien in generally liked Fairburn’s illustrations, as I do, therefore that everything she drew is absolutely official. But Tolkien liked Pauline Baynes as an artist, yet I once had an account, I think in a fanzine, claiming that Tolkien rather disliked her images of the Fellowship which she included in a Map of Middle-earth but said nothing of this to her except something like “Ah, there they all are.” But once she had departed he pulled out a ruler and began measuring the characters, feeling that the relative sizes were wrong. Pauline Baynes remarked that she had not been told by Tolkien that he was at all displeased.
A reference to this poster map appears in John D. Rateliff’s
The History of the Hobbit, Part One, page 60. Rateliff writes in note 14:
These comments [on Gandalf’s height] come from an essay Tolkien wrote circa 1970 in response to seeing Pauline Baynes’ art for a poster-map of Middle-earth. In addition to ten vignettes on the map itself, Baynes added a headpiece at top showing all nine members of the Fellowship of the Ring (plus Bill the pony) and a tailpiece at the bottom showing the Black Riders, Gollum, Shelob, and a horde of Orcs. Although Tolkien greatly admired Baynes’ work on the whole, he disliked this particular piece so much that, in addition to writing this essay he had the top and bottom cropped off the original painting when he had it framed for presentation to his longtime secretary Joy Hill (personal communication, May 1987). The original essay is now in the Bodleian Library (Tolkien Papers A61 a, fol. 1-31).
See
http://www.paulinebaynes.com/_galler...1984634761.jpg and
http://ifisdead.net/wp-content/uploa...ine_Baynes.jpg .
I merely suggest that if Tolkien liked Fairburn’s work in general, he might not have mentioned to her anything he disliked.