Art in Middle Earth.

[Mumriken]

Cry me a river, all I'm saying is that most lived in hunter/gatherer societies or on farming. There were no intellectual centers in middle earth. The elves were too much caught up in reality to bury themself in fiction...which art basically is.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Mumriken

Cry me a river, all I'm saying is that most lived in hunter/gatherer societies or on farming. There were no intellectual centers in middle earth. The elves were too much caught up in reality to bury themself in fiction...which art basically is.

Once again, why do you need an intellectual centre to make art?

And why does art have to be fiction?

[Mumriken]

There is a difference between these two, i will say no more:

[Rumil]

There does appear to be a lack of descriptions of paintings in Middle Earth, but that doesn't really mean that there weren't any.

There aren't many places that you'd expect them to be described. Edoras had its tapestries - far more appropriate for Rohan's culture than oil paintings, frescoes or icons to my mind. I'd certainly expect to see this sort of art in Gondor, but we are only really shown the description of the Avenue of Kings as Faramir Jones posted above. Now this fair but cold hall of stone and sculpture fits Minas Tirith so very well, especially Denethor's character. It's maybe a reminder of classical architecture as an instrument of power - big and impressive to overawe visitors, impersonal too, no natural colours etc.

This does rather hint at Greece and Rome, but as we know today classical sculpture etc was usually brighly painted, even to the extent of appearing gaudy to us.

So maybe painted art was widespread in Minas Tirith but we just didn't get to see any. To be fair there was a war on, so perhaps Pippin just didn't have the time to tour the gallery.

Apart from what's mentioned above, the only hint of paintings I can think of aren't mentioned in the books, but are just possibly shown in one of Tolkien's own drawings. Where? Well, the front hall of Bag End of course.



Now these might be paintings or possibly mirrors. The one on the left might be reflecting the view out of the front door, or it might be a painting of that view. The perspective seems a bit off for it to be a mirror, and a curved mirror should give a distorted image but JRRT wasn't really a professional artist so could well have got it a bit wrong. The other picture/mirror shows just a swirl. No way of guessing what this is. But as said above I could certainly see the Gentle-hobbitry hanging paintings of notable ancestors or nice landscapes.

[Rumil]

Some more painting snippets I've thought of.

'At the sign of the Prancing Pony'

Above the arch there was a lamp, and beneath it swung a large signboard: a fat white pony reared up on its hind legs. Over the door was painted in white letters: THE PRANCING PONY by BARLIMAN BUTTERBUR.

So Bree at least has painted pub signs, and I strongly suspect that The Green Dragon and other Shire pubs had similar.

As Mith says heraldic art is often mentioned, eg the devices of the Noldorian princes in the First Age. But there's also the use of more representational devices, like the white horses painted on the shields of the Rohirrim. Another area is that of flags and banners. We are told that Aragorn's standard was embroidered by Arwen, but as far as I'm aware embroidered battle flags are quite rare in our reality, more often they were painted. So Rohan's horse, Dol Amroth's swan and Harad's serpent may well have been painted.

[Rumil]

Aha! another mention of Bag End art

There was plenty of everything left for Frodo. And, of course, all the chief treasures, as well as the books, pictures, and more than enough furniture, were left in his possession

[Faramir Jones]

Nice references, Rumil! I was possibly thinking of one of them when wondering if some hobbits had their portraits painted.