The Image Of Gandalf: Part Two

The first picture shows Gandalf by Tim Kirk. Tim Kirk produced one of the first Tolkien Calendars (1975) not illustrated with art by Tolkien or Pauline Baynes. As such I believe he set many precedents in Tolkien iconography to this day. His Gandalf towers over Bilbo, and recalls a famous picture of Odin by Georg Von Rosen.

The second Gandalf is from the 1977 Rankin/Bass production of The Hobbit. This design recalls the work of Arthur Rackham, and neatly solves the dilemma of drawing Gandalf as having, per Tolkien's description, "long bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat" by doing away with the brim of the hat. (As an interesting side note, long eyebrows are a sign of wisdom in Oriental art. The influence of Oriental design, such as the use of round doors in both Hobbit and Japanese architecture, might be a subject worthy of further study.)

The third Gandalf is from Ralph Bakshi's incomplete 1978 animated epic, The Lord of the Rings. This Gandalf's over-all bluish color scheme reminds me of Disney's Merlin from The Sword in the Stone. Bakshi used a technique called rotoscoping; that is, he filmed the action with people in costumes and then drew over that to capture the motion. Strangely enough, they recorded the voice work first, then had models dressed in costumes (not the voice actors themselves in all cases) mime to the soundtrack.

The fourth Gandalf is by John Howe, and was produced for The 1991 J. R. R. Tolkien Calendar. This shows Gandalf, not in any of his famous poses such as meeting Bilbo or riding an Eagle or fighting the Balrog, but simply travelling through Middle-Earth as he did for hundreds of years, going about his business on foot and in all weathers, earning his name as the Grey Pilgrim. This picture struck a chord with many Tolkien fans, even before Peter Jackson selected it out as the model for Gandalf for his movies and gave a copy to Ian McKellan to use as inspiration.

Which of course Ian McKellan brilliantly did as the fifth Gandalf. I can understand how Sir Ian could prefer the outfit for Gandalf the White as less bushy, layered, and heavy, but I still like Gandalf the Grey better, just as I would have to say I like The Fellowship of the Ring better than the other two movies. This is just a matter of temperament: I like FotR for the same reasons some people don't like it as much, because it is slower and has more history and character exposition and less action. It is like McKellan's portrayal of Gandalf the Grey; a little fussy but more human and approachable.

The Image Of Gandalf: Part One

Sometime in the latter half of the 1920's, J. R. R. Tolkien purchased a postcard reproducing a painting by Josef Madlener called Der Berggeist (The Mountain Spirit). It shows an old man with a broad-brimmed hat and a red cloak, petting a white deer that nuzzles his hand; they are near a tiny stream in a tree-lined, airy, mountainous valley. Years later, on the paper cover in which he carefully preserved this picture, Tolkien wrote "Origin of Gandalf." This postcard, by a German painter of a figure from German folklore, was the jumping-off place for Tolkien's imagination, and the seed for the image of the most recognizable wizard (after Merlin) in all Western literature.

But it was, of course, just a starting spot; Tolkien did not use the personality of Rubezahl (as the Mountain Spirit is known) or Madlener's design or color scheme exactly. Here is how Tolkien describes Gandalf as he is first seen in The Hobbit: "All that the unsuspecting Bilbo saw that morning was an old man with a staff. He had a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak, a silver scarf over which his long white beard hung down below his waist, and immense black boots." This is the figure that Tolkien produces exactly in his only full color sketch of Gandalf that has been published to date. This picture is of particular interest in that it gives some idea of the height of the hat and the length of the staff as Tolkien envisioned them. I believe the use of the blue hat and the grey cloak might have their origins in the appearance of Odin the Wanderer; this is how the Norse sky-god disguised his appearance when he travelled unknown among men. And this is Gandalf before he was called Gandalf the Grey. That title is only developed in The Lord of the Rings, and distinguishes him when he is considered as a member of a high and noble Order. Here his monochromatic ensemble is accented by touches of blue, silver, and black.

Years later, in The 1984 J. R. R. Tolkien Calendar, in the illustration for November, Roger Garland produced a painting that is surely a re-imagining of the Madlener postcard in a more exacting Middle-Earth context. Here Gandalf (though his beard is not so long as Tolkien describes, and his boots are yellow) sits by a small stream in a tree-lined, airy, mountainous valley. There is a deer (a stag, in fact) in the background; its distance, especially in contrast with the original, seems to emphasize the wizard's isolation as he travels on his mission, although his contemplative air as he surveys the beautiful scene could indicate that he is considering what is at stake on that task.

Halloween Peanuts 2009

Misleadingly marketed as "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!" tie-in toys, these are available at the CVS Pharmacies at $6.99 each. Charlie Brown as a vampire, Lucy as a witch, and Schroeder as the Phantom of the Opera, with Snoopy and Woodstock in burglar-type masks (isn't there a specific term for these? Vizards, or something?) and a weird thin standee vinyl skeleton.

The Many Faces Of Bilbo Baggins: Part Seven

Today's first Bilbo is from a 1945 Swedish edition. He looks kind of like a genie, or a gypsy, or Jiggs from the old "Bringing Up Father" comic strip. In this edition "hobbit" was translated as "hompen." This was the sort of pointless invention that annoyed Tolkien, and led him to compose some Notes On Nomenclature for translators of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

The second Bilbo is by David Wenzel for the graphic novel adaptation.

The third Bilbo is by Inger Edelfeldt, and shows Bilbo giving his speech at his 111th Birthday Party. He seems rather dispassionate to me, not as if he's been teasing his friends and relations and preparing to pull off the biggest practical joke of his life.

The fourth Bilbo is by Maurice Sendak, from a drawing he made while considering whether or not to try to illustrate The Hobbit. What an intriguing "if only" proposition! This is by far the smuggest Bilbo I've ever seen, ripe to be taken down a notch or two by a wandering wizard.

The fifth Bilbo is by Lidia Postma, and has been re-used in many of David Day's Tolkien books. It shows Bilbo in a scholarly mood, perhaps considering a passage in his memoirs. It's hard for me to give a completely unbiased judgement on this portrayal, as it bears a very strong resemblance to my Great Aunt Ruby.

And this, I think, must be my last posting on the Many Faces of Bilbo Baggins; not because there are no more, but because there are too many. I believe I could scrounge up about forty more; there is definitely a plethora of bizarre interpretations through the decades and across the globe. But who will be the newest face of Bilbo Baggins when the movie is cast?

The Many Faces Of Bilbo Baggins: Part Six

These Bilbos are all from foreign editions of The Hobbit. Behold the wonder of Bilbo Baggins filtered through other cultures.

The first Bilbo is from the 1962 Portuguese edition, drawn by Antonio Quadros. Tolkien called these illustrations "hideous."

The second Bilbo is by Tamas Szecsko, from the 1975 Hungarian edition. This Bilbo looks like the English character actor Robert Morley to me.

The third Bilbo is by Livia Rusz, from the 1975 Rumanian edition. I love these illustrations, but wonder about Bilbo's sugar-loaf hat. Perhaps it just went in her mind with "the Little People" kind of thing.

The fourth Bilbo is by Mikhail Belomlinskiy from the 1976 Russian edition. Apparently (according to notes cited in Douglas Anderson's The Annotated Hobbit) the common Russian language does not differentiate between the terms for "legs" and "feet" which accounts for this Kruschev-lookalike Bilbo's hairy lower appendages.

The fifth Bilbo is by an illustrator known only as "Chica," from the 1976 French edition. This Bilbo looks so French and so 70's I'm surprised he's not wearing a neck-scarf. The striped pants are particularly groovy.

The Many Faces Of Bilbo Baggins: Part Five

All of these Bilbos are by the Greg and Tim Hildebrandt, known when they painted together as the Brothers Hildebrandt. Greg and Tim were twins (Tim passed away recently), and when they worked together could produce amazing works at amazing speed working on the same canvas at the same time. When you see the work they did individually (and each is a great artist by himself) you can see what each brought to their collaborations, but I feel that when they worked together they created a special magic. Their images fleshed out my visions of Tolkien while I first started reading him; their 1977 Tolkien Calendar hung in my drama teacher's room that year. It was some years before I could see their work from 1976, but I made sure I got the 1978 calendar the next year.

The first Bilbo is from 1976. A detail from "Bilbo Meets Gandalf", posed for by Greg's son, Gregory Jr.

The second Bilbo is also from 1976, "Bilbo At Rivendell;" posed by Tim and Gregory Jr., but the face is of George Hildebrandt, the twins' father.

The third Bilbo is from 1977, "The Unexpected Party." I love this picture: it is perhaps my most favorite Tolkien illustration of all time. If I had the thousands of dollars necessary I would have bought the reproduction that used to be available at the SpiderwebArt Gallery, the Hildebrandts catalog site, and hung it up in my kitchen.

The fourth Bilbo is from "At the Grey Havens" (1978). Were there glasses in Middle-Earth? I don't remember them ever being mentioned, but several illustrators have shown Hobbits wearing them. Maybe it just seems to go so well with their general nature (like pumpkins, which people like to associate with Hobbits as well, though I don't remember them ever appearing).

The fifth Bilbo was produced quite recently, for the expanded edition of Greg and Tim Hildebrandt: The Tolkien Years. It's interesting to me that they kept in their vision of Bilbo's enormous sideburns (for consistency sake, I suppose). It just seemed natural back in the 70's, like Luke and Han's hairstyles in Star Wars, that now..., well, you know. The title of the whole picture was "Bilbo Meets Gollum." There's more Elvis than Elvish about it...

The Many Faces Of Bilbo Baggins: Part Four

The first Bilbo shown here is from the production design of the Rankin/Bass animated show of the 1970's. Although this design was softened and changed for the actual show, it survives in posters and artwork used to illustrate the tie-in print of the book.

The second Bilbo is how the hobbit actually appeared in the cartoon. He was voiced by Orson Bean, who did a fine job interpreting Bilbo's naivete, innocence, and a sort of English delicacy that borders on fussiness, without making him sound immature or childish.

The third Bilbo is from Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings. I read somewhere recently that his design was based on (if not actually modelled by) Billy Barty, and seeing his stubby fingers and squinchy eyes one can notice the resemblance. The film suffered from severe plot and time compression, and coupled with the unsubtle nature of animation, Bilbo was reduced to a cameo comic turn.

The fourth Bilbo is of course the great Sir Ian Holm in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings. Sir Ian was already an old hand in the legendarium as he had played Frodo in the BBC radio production. His interpretation of Bilbo in all phases throughout the films is simply beyond compare.

The fifth Bilbo is from the Sierra Entertainment video game adaptation of The Hobbit. I think the design, while distinctly individual (especially the hair style!) hearkens back to the Rankin Bass conception. I enjoyed this game; even its story embellishments were not too far-out, and the writing shows a competent familiarity with Tolkien's work.