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/lp/edinburgh-university-press/an-art-to-depict-the-noble-and-the-heroic-tolkien-on-adaptation-aDREgXv9i5
- Publisher
- Edinburgh University Press
- Copyright
- Copyright © Edinburgh University Press
- ISSN
- 2045-8797
- eISSN
- 2045-8800
- DOI
- 10.3366/ink.2019.0025
- Publisher site
- See Article on Publisher Site
Abstract
Mary Fairburn is an English-born artist and illustrator of whose long career there is little published trace. However, in 1968, aged 34, she almost become the illustrator of the century's best-selling novel, The Lord of the Rings. To understand both how this did not happen—but also how it almost happened—this essay firstly puts on record Mary Fairburn's life and career, in the context of Tolkien's many other dealings with illustrators. The second half of the essay shows why Tolkien was so drawn to Mary Fairburn's pictures, by examining his own visual aesthetics and what he expected from adaptation, and by considering his comments in correspondence with and about the illustrators whose work he saw, but who ran foul of his insistence on a decisive distinction between art and illustration. Not only did Fairburn respect Tolkien's text, in both atmosphere and detail, which was for him a vital consideration, she also shared many of his own artistic influences and painted in an idiom he found intelligible. The essay draws on unpublished correspondence.
Journal
Journal of Inklings Studies – Edinburgh University Press
Published: Apr 1, 2019