I wonder if there will ever be a book providing full colour scans of JRRT's drawings, paintings sketches and maps relating to periods other than The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings? I for one would love this to supplement my HOME volumes, especially The Shaping of Middle-earth.
The only worthwhile title as I see it would be an update to Hammond and Sculls amazing Artist and Illustrator which better matched the format of the Art of books, being revised to better reflect Silm. But, there are a few factors which make any such thing as very unlikely. Firstly, there is very little that is specifically Silm, as demonstrated by the recent artist edition, and the artwork reproduction from HarperCollins is getting worse as time goes on. When a book with extended commentary has better artwork reproduction than the artist edition, it's time to stop in my opinion.
Great points all round, thank you. Do you mean The Art of the Hobbit: na https://amzn.eu/d/6T3ASgj when you refer to poor reproduction? Cheers
I can't speak to the recent reissues of the Art of books but the originals had glossy pages and the art was presented fantastically well. The poor reproductions of Tolkien's art is in reference to the recent 'Author Illustrated' editions.
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The art (illustrated by the author) in the Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion are very poor in my opinion.
I've heard from Wayne and Christina several years ago that they pitched such a book to HarperCollins, but HC weren't interested and didn't think there was enough of a market.
And since then, books like Maker of Middle-earth and the recent illustrated Silmarillion offer significant overlap, presumably making the prospects for an ArtofS book even lower.
Personally I'd love such a book, but it doesn't seem that likely to happen.
What a shame ibid I have not seen Maker of Middle-earth in the flesh. Based on what you say, this might be a good buy for me. Every time I come on this forum I add several books to my wish list!
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