Albert Suriñach I Campos, April 2024
J.R.R.Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”, “The Hobbit”, “The Silmarillion” and his other many tales and poems from his fictional world of Middle-Earth have garnered world-wide acclaim in the 20th and 21th century, cementing him as one of the fathers of modern fantasy. However, despite the many militaristic and conflict-oriented narratives that permeate his stories, there is a general understanding by his readers of Middle-Earth and his fantasy worlds as spaces of inner peace and solace. The objective of my research for the past year has been to uncover the aspects of peace intertwined in his narrative through an exploration of the visual arts adaptations of his stories.
In the following document, I pull together some of my research on Tolkien’s storytelling and the illustrations that have been produced by him and others to accompany his books. I also introduce two paintings of my own, inspired by Tolkien’s work. as part of our wider research into different approaches to picturing peace and peacebuilding. You can see my two paintings below this document.
The shores of Tol Eressea
This painting explores the narratological element of peace, and how it is found through the story and not so much in the setting. The description of the peace reads:
“When Frodo returns to the Shire after his odyssey to throw the ring in Mordor, he finds himself unable to find peace, haunted by the shadow of the Morgul blade that pierced his shoulder. Many have compared Frodo’s struggle to enjoy his peaceful home again after coming back from war as an allegory of the PTSD of soldiers returning from war, as Tolkien would have seen during World War I. As a solution, Gandalf and the Elves offer him the chance to sail with them beyond the lands of mortals into the Undying Lands, where the gods and all the elves reside in eternal harmony. This last journey can be interpreted in a more religious or spiritual way, viewing the Undying Lands as a metaphysical heaven, or as fantasy, understanding the lands of Aman as a paradisiac fantasy version of a deathless utopia. The only certain interpretation is that the journey into the Undying lands stands for Frodo finally finding peace. I was always awe-struck by the imagination of a physical space that literally represents peace, and tried my best to portray it in this artwork. We know that Frodo would have arrived first to Tol Eressëa, a small island that acts as a kind of “purgatory” for mortals that would arrive to Aman, so it was on descriptions of said island that I based my painting.”
The mere of Cuiviénen
This painting, which focuses on a scene of “The Silmarillion”, presents a more scenic moment of peace that more accurately echoes the general themes of the book. Posthumously published after his death, The Silmarillion was Tolkien’s lifelong project, painstakingly detailing the history of Middle-Earth since its inception. In it, Ilúvatar, Father of the gods, devises unknown plans for the arrival of the different mortals (elves, humans) to the physical world, Middle-Earth. The description of the piece reads:
“Before the First Age of Middle Earth, far before even the Sun had been born, the first elves sprung from existence in the shores of the lakes of the Cuiviénen, unbeknownst to the gods themselves, as the first step in Eru Ilúvatar’s creation plan. Upon finding them, the gods gave the race of the elves their name – the Eldar, the “ones concerned with the stars”, for that is everything they saw, in the sky and in the lakes.[1] The stars, that minor light, less blaring than the Sun, is a poetic simile of a more nuanced and subtle light. They remind us of hope in times of darkness, of the light that needs to be carefully observed to be noticed, of the mystery and beauty in the Universe. This scene has always appeared particularly peaceful to me, a pure moment of creation that springs in silence, spontaneously, unconcerned by the schemes and conflicts that were shaking the primordial gods at the time. “
[1] Silmarillion, p.34