This August, I will be giving a talk at the Online MidSummer Seminar 2025 held by the Mythopoeic Society.
After a few years as an attendee, I am delighted to be part of the line-up for this edition the theme of which is “More Perilous and Fair: Women and Gender in Mythopoeic Fantasy”. Although my primary focus is illustration, over the years I have developed a deep interest in gender studies and I thought there was no way I’d bridge the two, until I worked on a PhD chapter about the representation of Lúthien in illustration. The Mythopoeic Society’s Call for Papers arrived at the right time, and I sent the following abstract which was accepted for the seminar. I am currently working on the paper and the accompanying Powerpoint presentation, and I am very excited to feature some illustrations I’ve been loving for years, but hadn’t included in my PhD because they don’t feature in illustrated editions of the Legendarium.
Painting “the most beautiful of all the Children of Ilúvatar”: aesthetic beauty in The Silmarillion and its illustrations
How can artists paint a portrait of “the most beautiful of all the Children of Ilúvatar”? Although the concept of Beauty has been discussed in relation to Goodness in a theological context (Coutras), it is rather missing from discussions on Tolkienian illustrations. How do artists consider the concept of Beauty in their illustrations? How do they picture a character described as especially beautiful? Drawing from artists’ accounts both from the sphere of Tolkien art (Nasmith) and outside (Rothko), and from Art History research (Eco), this paper is a thought experiment aiming at considering Beauty from an aesthetic rather than theological perspective in Tolkien studies. Illustrations of Lúthien are the focus as they crystallise many questions related to the idea of Beauty. Although artists deal with appearances, and although some strive to present their personal interpretation of Beauty, others do not necessarily give a prescriptive representation of beautiful characters.
Bibliography
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1937.
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1954-1955.
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, ed. Christopher Tolkien, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1977.
J.R.R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories”, in The Monsters and the Critics, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1983.
J.R.R. Tolkien, Letters, ed. Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien, London, HarperCollinsPublishers, 2023.
Mark Rothko, The Artist’s Reality, Philosophies of Art, Y ale, Yale University Press, 2004.
Michael David Elam, “The ‘Ainulindalë’ and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Beautiful Sorrow in Christian Tradition”, VII: Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center, Vol. 28, 2011, pp. 61-78.
Lisa Coutras, Tolkien’s Theology of Beauty: Majesty, Splendor, and Transcendence in Middle-earth, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
Umberto Eco, On the Shoulders of Giants, translated by Alastair McEwen, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2019.
Kathryn Colvin “‘Her Enchanted Hair’: Rossetti, ‘Lady Lilith,’ and the Victorian Fascination with Hair as Influences on Tolkien”, Mythlore, Vol. 39, No. 1, 2020.
OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
Marie Bretagnolle (16 mai 2025). Abstract — Online MidSummer Seminar 2025. Tolkien & illustration. Consulté le 8 février 2026 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/13xug
