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Daughter of Nienna
Grey Havens
Apr 22 2007, 8:05am
Post #1 of 3
(1445 views)
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Tolkien art: John Howe #2: Gandalf Fights the Balrog
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Can't Post
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Gandalf Fights the Balrog
These images are in order to when they were created or published)
Gandalf and the Balrog
Gouache on card,
1979
Myth & Magic, Harper Collins Publishers, 2001
This painting was actually done in art school (and one of the few not to take the route to the trash at each semester's end everything-must-go clearout). Having a mild obsession with Tolkien, and having managed to shoehorn Middle-Earth into a mandatory book design project, I happily did half a dozen colour plates and vignettes of the Moria sequence, as well as a few pages on Cirith Ungol. But goodness, 1979 seems a long time ago...
The Bridge of Khazad-dum
1995
The 1997 Tolkien calendar
This painting has a lengthy genesis. I originally did a sketch of Glorfindel's final battle with the Balrog - bloated moon, flying cloud, icy mountain peak, the whole lot - but it was judged too harsh for a book cover and went quietly to sulk in a box in the attic for a few years.
In 1989 it surfaced again after a spring cleanup and Glorfindel became Gandalf and the bridge of Khazad-dum replaced the precipice. I made the error of masking the Gandalf silhouette before drawing it properly, and he spent the duration of the picture shuffling back and forth on the bridge with his staff and Glamdring stuck in one place until he finally found firm footing...
Gandalf and the Balrog II
1996.
Yet another Balrog and Gandalf scene, this time originally done for a convention poster in Holland.
One of my endless series of the same scene - from behind, from in front, from the side, from below - one of these days I may run out of angles... People do ask me why am I so obsessed with this scene perhaps I should have my head examined and certainly there is professional help out there... Alas, I have no answers. (Besides, there's not a lot in my head to BE examined in the first place) and nobody quizzes artists on the whys and wherefores of their interminable series of variations on a theme. Perhaps if I were to do a blue version, and a yellow one, and throw in something more esoteric, I'd be spared such interrogations.
Gandalf Falls With The Balrog
1996
Iron Crown Enterprises, 1997
The biggest I.C.E. card in history, certainly! Originally done as a commission for Iron Crown Enterprises, for a card entitled To the Uttermost Foundations in their Lord of the Rings Collectable Card Game, where the images are printed about the size of a well-fed postage stamp, the scene in question seemed to merit a more dignified format.
http://www.john-howe.com/portfolio/gallery/data/thumbnails/21/GandalfFallsWithTheBalrog.jpg
Zirak-zigil
1999
Moria
The Bridge of Kazad-dum
95.0 x 45.0 cm, 2000
Lord of the Rings Boardgame, Sophisticated Games © 2002
Gandalf and the Balrog (from Sketchbook)
Sketch done for the Lord of the Rings Boardgame.
Yet another scene of Gandalf and the Balrog. The artwork for the board game was done after the film experience, and while contractually obliged to steer clear of the film design, a few changes have crept in.
The Balrog's flaming mane is one, and the sword, reminiscent of the two-handed Uruk blades is another. Gandalf has lost his hat too...Otherwise, given the number of elements to be placed over the illustration, the whole composition is quite empty of detail and contrast.
I'm throwing this one in here, seems to fit.
Watcher in the Water
Another not particularly imaginative painting for the MECCG.
I'm sure I suffered from the small format, and should have worked much much bigger regardless of the fee. (It wouldn't have made much difference in the end anyway, as I.C.E. eventually disappeared into bankruptcy, owing me a substantial amount of money...)
I did not want to exclude any Gandalf immages, if you know of any please post them.
I am not sure I will post any more...there are a lot wonderful images by Howe. I think that it is up to all of us now to post what ever images we want. I started it off, now the rest is up to you guys.
Drogo's post concernig this:
http://newboards.theonering.net/...forum_view_expanded;
…
Art Gallery Revised, Aloha & Mahalo, Websites Directory
Nienna: “ those who hearken to her learn pity, and endurance in hope . . . All those who wait in Mandos cry to her, for she brings strength to the spirit and turns sorrow to wisdom." — Valaquenta
(This post was edited by Daughter of Nienna on Apr 22 2007, 8:12am)
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OhioHobbit
Gondor
Apr 22 2007, 7:50pm
Post #2 of 3
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I think most of the Balrog paintings are a bit too stylistic for my taste. I think it's really neat the way John Howe used the Balrog's wing to frame Gandalf in Gandalf and the Balrog II.
You know why John Howe puts wings on his Balrogs, don't you? It's so he can add those wing spurs he likes so much (per DVD extras).
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Beren IV
Gondor
Apr 23 2007, 4:17am
Post #3 of 3
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Liking the fantastical side of Arda, the confrontation between Gandalf and Durin's Bane is arguably my favorite scene anywhere in the book. I like how Peter Jackson in the second movie included more scenes of it, as well as some dramatic music for the battle between two Ainur, in which the age and power of the "ancient world" comes forth in its blazing glory. I am gratified that Howe does a painting, indeed two paintings of it - both of which clearly inspired Jackson. However, there is one pet peeve that I have with it: it seems obvious to me that Gandalf is facing off against the Balrog using his Ainur powers, just as the Balrog is itself an Ainu, and that when out of sight of the lesser beings up above, he really did "uncloak", casting off the form of an old man that he had been given to trapse around Middle-Earth in while guiding the Free Peoples, and reveal his true power. I thus see Gandalf fighting the Balrog as a vigorous, winged, Angellic figure, for that is indeed what he is, and I prefer to envision the Angel against the Demon instead of the Wizard against the Demon.
And Zirak-Zigil is too steep. There is no way you would keep snow on something that steep like that, and the outcrop in the foreground is too close, and the crags in the background too high. Zirak-zigil is the second-highest peak in the area, second to Barazinbar, and it's not described as really craggy, but more pyramidal. 'Silver-point' also describes a pyramidal, if spire-like, mountain, as well.
Once a paleontologist, now a botanist, will be a paleobotanist
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