New interview with Christopher Tolkien

[Lalwendë]

I think the opinion on Lee and Howe is that of the journalist, who is a dreadful writer. The article is all background pre-amble and the journo's feelings about the topic, with very scanty input from CT. I would guess he spoke for longer than two minutes so where is the rest of it?

Anyway, here we are, I've found the page where Alan Lee expresses beautifully his feelings about illustrating Middle-earth:

In 1988, Alan was approached by J. R. R. Tolkien's publisher to create fifty new paintings for a lavish new edition of The Lord of the Rings, celebrating the first centenary of Tolkien's birth. This work took the artist two years to create and was published in 1991 — a stunning achievement which beautifully captures the unique magic of Tolkien's world. (More recently, he completed illustrations for The Hobbit, published earlier this year.)

Speaking about this massive undertaking, Alan says: "I first read The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit when I was eighteen. It felt as though the author had taken every element I'd ever want in a story and woven them into one huge, seamless narrative; but more important, for me, Tolkien had created a place, a vast, beautiful, awesome landscape, which remained a resource long after the protagonists had finished their battles and gone their separate ways. In illustrating The Lord of the Rings I allowed the landscapes to predominate. In some of the scenes the characters are so small they are barely discernible. This suited my own inclinations and my wish to avoid, as much as possible, interfering with the pictures being built up in the reader's mind, which tends to be more closely focussed on characters and their inter-relationships. I felt my task lay in shadowing the heroes on their epic quest, often at a distance, closing in on them at times of heightened emotion but avoiding trying to re-create the dramatic highpoints of the text.

With The Hobbit, however, it didn't seem appropriate to keep such a distance, particularly from the hero himself. I don't think I've ever seen a drawing of a Hobbit which quite convinced me, and I don't know whether I've gotten any closer myself with my depictions of Bilbo. I'm fairly happy with the picture of him standing outside Bag End, before Gandalf arrives and turns his world upside-down, but I've come to the conclusion that one of the reasons Hobbits are so quiet and elusive is to avoid the prying eyes of illustrators."

{dn: my paras there, to make it easier to read}

Linky to the Endicott Studio which he is part of, a loose group also included Neil Gaiman, Brian Froud and Charles Vess. One of the rare websites which can be called a thing of beauty.