{"id":113356,"date":"2022-06-17T18:49:05","date_gmt":"2022-06-17T23:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/?p=113356"},"modified":"2022-06-17T18:49:09","modified_gmt":"2022-06-17T23:49:09","slug":"revisiting-the-amazing-tolkien-art-of-jay-johnstone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2022\/06\/17\/113356-revisiting-the-amazing-tolkien-art-of-jay-johnstone\/","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting the amazing Tolkien art of Jay Johnstone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Over on Wraith Land<\/a>, Thomas Kelley has just published the second part of his extended interview with Tolkien artist Jay Johnstone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jay\u2019s artwork employs techniques from religious manuscripts, icon and fresco illustrations from the medieval period, and uses a variety of mediums \u2014 oils, watercolors, acrylics, egg tempera with gold powder and leaf. Striking detail and traditional techniques give the impression of artwork that could have been produced in the real Middle-earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first part explored<\/a> how Johnstone’s own dreams influence his art. In this second part, Kelly explores Johnstone’s medieval illumination approach to Tolkien art in detail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An excerpt:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I interviewed Jay last year in April, I asked him about this \u201ctext within a text\u201d vision in his Tolkien art, which to me are of the same theme as his \u201cdream within a dream\u201d iconographies. Using his painting \u201cGandalf in the Library of Minas Tirith<\/a>\u201d as an example, I pointed out how he meticulously detailed the books and scrolls in that image with Tengwar<\/a> lettering. You can also see this painstaking attention throughout, as in works like \u201cThe Dwarves,\u201d which illuminates Thror\u2019s map in Bag End from The Hobbit<\/em>.<\/p>

\u201cYou know, I can’t remember what it says but there’s two parchments on his desk and both of them are written on and the lettering is about a millimeter high,\u201d he says of the Gandalf in Minas Tirith work, chuckling a bit under his breath. \u201cIt’s absolutely tiny. I literally do it with a magnifying glass and a precision brush, a brush with one hair on it. I do that in quite a lot of paintings.\u201d<\/p>

It\u2019s another level of getting inside<\/em> Middle-earth, down to the micro. Such works are a celebration of the writers and sages inside that meta world, and of writing and learning itself. Johnstone\u2019s \u201cC\u00edrdan the Shipwright<\/a>\u201d \u2014 with its Tengwar and ship schematics on parchment \u2014 and his \u201cBilbo at the Library at Rivendell<\/a>\u201d \u2014 with history flowing from Bilbo\u2019s pen \u2014 give us a new window into time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Visit Wraith Land to read the feature in full<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Cirdan
Cirdan the Shipwright by Jay Johnstone<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over on Wraith Land, Thomas Kelley has just published the second part of his extended interview with Tolkien…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":113358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[331,3654],"tags":[3609,1788,3838,3219,3837],"class_list":["post-113356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-greenbooks","category-interview","tag-jay-johnstone","tag-library","tag-thomas-kelley","tag-tolkien-art","tag-wraith-land"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/cirdan-by-johnstone.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tLoH-tuk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113356"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113359,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113356\/revisions\/113359"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}