Jenny Dolfen (born 1975) is a German illustrator and teacher, known especially for her illustrations of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth.
Jenny Dolfen (born 1975) is a German illustrator and teacher, known especially for her illustrations of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth.
Jenny Dolfen was born in Bremerhaven, and in 2001, she received a degree in English and Latin at the University of Cologne. Dolfen lives near Aachen with her husband and her two children.
Dolfen has done artwork for several role-playing games, including Fuller Flippers' Quest Cards , Action Studios' Realms of Wonder , Final Sword Productions' The World of Erien and the German Das Schwarze Auge . [2]
She is known for her artwork based on the Middle-earth works of J. R. R. Tolkien, chiefly The Silmarillion . [3] Dolfen won the inaugural Tolkien Society Award in the category "best artwork" in 2014, for her watercolour painting "Eärendil the Mariner". [1] Since then she has won awards in 2018 for "The Hunt", a depiction of Finrod Felagund going on a hunt with the Fëanoreans Maedhros and Maglor in Eastern Beleriand; and in 2020 the T-shirt design "The Professor", celebrating 50 years of The Tolkien Society, with Middle-earth characters and places within the outline of a pipe-smoking J. R. R. Tolkien. [4]
Dolfen has made illustrations for George R. R. Martin's novel A Song of Ice and Fire , as documented in the 2005 book The Art of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. [5] [6]
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel by the English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book The Hobbit, but eventually developed into a much larger work. Written in stages between 1937 and 1949, The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written, with over 150 million copies sold.
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again is a children's fantasy novel by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published in 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald Tribune for best juvenile fiction. The book is recognized as a classic in children's literature and is one of the best-selling books of all time, with over 100 million copies sold.
In the philologist and fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fiction, a warg is a particularly large and evil kind of wolf that could be ridden by orcs. He derived the name and characteristics of his wargs by combining meanings and myths from Old Norse and Old English. In Norse mythology, a vargr is a wolf, especially the wolf Fenrir that destroyed the god Odin in the battle of Ragnarök, and the wolves Sköll and Hati, Fenrir's children, who perpetually chase the Sun and Moon. In Old English, a wearh is an outcast who may be strangled to death.
Fingolfin is a character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, appearing in The Silmarillion. He was the son of Finwë, High King of the Noldor. He was threatened by his half-brother Fëanor, who held him in contempt for not being a pure-bred Noldor. Even so, when Fëanor stole ships and left Aman, Fingolfin chose to follow him back to Middle-earth, taking the dangerous route over the ice of the Helcaraxë. On arrival, he challenged the Dark Lord Morgoth at the gates of his fortress, Angband, but Morgoth stayed inside. When his son Fingon rescued Maedhros, son of Fëanor, Maedhros gratefully renounced his claim to kingship, and Fingolfin became High King of the Noldor. He was victorious at the battle of Dagor Aglareb, and there was peace for some 400 years until Morgoth broke out and destroyed Beleriand in the Dagor Bragollach. Fingolfin, receiving false news, rode alone to Angband and challenged Morgoth to single combat. He wounded Morgoth several times, but grew weary and was killed by the immortal Vala.
Tuor Eladar and Idril Celebrindal are fictional characters from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. They are the parents of Eärendil the Mariner and grandparents of Elrond Half-elven: through their progeny, they become the ancestors of the Númenóreans and of the King of the Reunited Kingdom Aragorn Elessar. Both characters play a pivotal role in The Fall of Gondolin, one of Tolkien's earliest stories; it formed the basis for a section in his later work, The Silmarillion, and was expanded as a standalone publication in 2018.
Pauline Diana Baynes was an English illustrator, author, and commercial artist. She contributed drawings and paintings to more than 200 books, mostly in the children's genre. She was the first illustrator of some of J. R. R. Tolkien's minor works, including Farmer Giles of Ham, Smith of Wootton Major, and The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. She became well-known for her cover illustrations for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and for her poster map with inset illustrations, A Map of Middle-earth. She illustrated all seven volumes of C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, from the first book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Gaining a reputation as the "Narnia artist", she illustratred spinoffs like Brian Sibley's The Land of Narnia. In addition to work for other authors, including illustrating Roger Lancelyn Green's The Tales of Troy and Iona and Peter Opie's books of nursery rhymes, Baynes created some 600 illustrations for Grant Uden's A Dictionary of Chivalry, for which she won the Kate Greenaway Medal. Late in her life she began to write and illustrate her own books, with animal or Biblical themes.
Alan Lee is an English book illustrator and film conceptual designer. He is best known for his artwork inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novels, and for his work on the concept design of Peter Jackson's film adaptations of Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film series.
J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator is a collection of paintings and drawings by J. R. R. Tolkien for his stories, published posthumously in 1995. The book was edited by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull. It won the 1996 Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inklings Studies. The nature and importance of Tolkien's artwork is discussed.
The works of J. R. R. Tolkien have served as the inspiration to painters, musicians, film-makers and writers, to such an extent that he is sometimes seen as the "father" of the entire genre of high fantasy.
Do not laugh! But once upon a time I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic to the level of romantic fairy-story... The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. Absurd.
Ted Nasmith is a Canadian artist, illustrator and architectural renderer. He is best known as an illustrator of J. R. R. Tolkien's works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. Tolkien praised and commented on his early work, something that encouraged him in his career.
Donato Giancola is an American artist specializing in narrative realism with science fiction and fantasy content, including images for Tolkien's Middle-earth. He has won many Chesley Awards and other honors for his illustrations.
Anke Katrin Eißmann is a German illustrator and graphic designer known for her illustrations of J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. She studied visual communication at Bauhaus University in Weimar and at the Colchester Institute in the United Kingdom. Eißmann has also made a number of short films. She is an art teacher at the Johanneum high school in Herborn.
Barbara Remington was an American artist and illustrator. Born in Minnesota, she was probably best known for her cover-art for Ballantine Books' first paperback editions of J. R. R. Tolkien's novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and for her Tolkien-related poster A Map of Middle-earth.
Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth is a 2018 art book exploring images of the artwork, illustrations, maps, letters and manuscripts of J. R. R. Tolkien. The book was written by Catherine McIlwaine, Tolkien archivist at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. It was timed to coincide with an exhibition of the same name, also curated by McIlwaine.
Poems and Songs of Middle Earth is a studio album of spoken-word poetry by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien and art songs composed by the English musician Donald Swann. On the first half of the album, Tolkien recites seven poems from or related to his fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings (1954–55). The second half is a performance of Swann's song cycle The Road Goes Ever On, which sets selections from Tolkien's verse to music. The vocalist William Elvin sings The Road Goes Ever On to Swann's piano accompaniment. Caedmon Records issued the album on 18 October 1967 in the United States, and then on 28 March 1968 in the United Kingdom. Its release coincided with the publication of The Road Goes Ever On as a book of sheet music with commentary and illustration by Tolkien.
Tolkien's artwork was a key element of his creativity from the time when he began to write fiction. A professional philologist, J. R. R. Tolkien prepared a wide variety of materials to support his fiction, including illustrations for his Middle-earth fantasy books, facsimile artefacts, more or less "picturesque" maps, calligraphy, and sketches and paintings from life. Some of his artworks combined several of these elements.
Since the publication of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit in 1937, artists including Tolkien himself have sought to capture aspects of Middle-earth fantasy novels in paintings and drawings. He was followed in his lifetime by artists whose work he liked, such as Pauline Baynes, Mary Fairburn, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, and Ted Nasmith, and by some whose work he rejected, such as Horus Engels for the German edition of The Hobbit. Tolkien had strong views on illustration of fantasy, especially in the case of his own works. His recorded opinions range from his rejection of the use of images in his 1936 essay On Fairy-Stories, to agreeing the case for decorative images for certain purposes, and his actual creation of images to accompany the text in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Commentators including Ruth Lacon and Pieter Collier have described his views on illustration as contradictory, and his requirements as being as fastidious as his editing of his novels.
Tolkien Calendars, displaying artworks interpreting J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, have appeared annually since 1976. Some of the early calendars were illustrated with Tolkien's own artwork. Artists including the Brothers Hildebrandt and Ted Nasmith produced popular work on themes from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit; later calendars also illustrated scenes from The Silmarillion. Some calendars have been named "Hobbit Calendar" or "Lord of the Rings Calendar", but "Tolkien Calendar" has remained the most popular choice of name.
The Tolkien Society Awards, established in 2014, are presented annually by The Tolkien Society to "recognise excellence in the fields of Tolkien scholarship and fandom". The awards are announced at the Annual Dinner during the Society's AGM and Springmoot weekend.
