Quote:
Originally Posted by skip spence
I meant to say that Tolkien was a better writer than he was a painter or illustrator and that naturalistic representations of Middle Earth and its inhabitants were hard for him to pull off successfully.
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My points have also been unclear, so let me explain a bit.
Is there any evidence that Tolkien ever wanted to be what you are calling a naturalistic illustrator? Did he ever try? I don't think so. I don't think he drew the way he did because he couldn't draw like Lee or Howe or Nasmith (for example). His style is not a default. I think he drew the way he did because that's how his artistic imagination worked.
And his illustrations were acceptable enough to his publishers for them to be used in the first edition of The Hobbit.
So it goes back to my opening comment here: "I suppose things hinge on what one wants in an illustrator."
You want "naturalistic" illustrations. Which is your taste and okay. Nothing wrong with that. But I don't think it's necessarily the case that such illustrations are the one criterion by which to evaluate the many different styles of illustrations.
Now the question of how to imagine the creatures that Tolkien's text gives us--which is how this thread started--now that's something different and an interesting question I think. There are those who say that any and all illustrations defeat the written word because they inhibit or limit the reader's imagination. Dragons especially are creatures of imagination, so maybe there's no one way to draw them to suit every reader. What is most fearful might be different for each reader. So maybe that is why the description is so tantalising but inconclusive. It's beyond naturalising.