Tiedosto:The-Dark-Tower.jpg

Yhteenveto

John Howe: The Dark Tower (1990)

Kuva © John Howe

Lähde: John Howen kotisivut

Kuvaus (tekijä):

The Dark Tower

47.3 x 47.3 cm, 1990

The 1991 Tolkien Calendar

Originally done for the calendar, this painting was reprinted on The Two Towers (September 1991), both hard and paperback. The calendars in the early '90's were quite a big format, spiral-bound, and more or less square. A frame with two facing vignettes of Sauron's army filled in the edges to accomodate the dates along the bottom.

I can't honestly remember the starting point, but I had (and still do) a collection of photos of the skulls of small animals - mice, rats, small birds - that an art school classmate and I had piled up and photographed. (Don't ask me to justify piling up and taking pictures of skulls, it's one of those things thats comes naturally to art students.) From these snapshots, I had done a painting of the Nameless Isle, from the Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, by H. P. Lovecraft. (Don't ask me why I did that either...) Like many things, some paintings are a dry run, and I knew I had the foundations of Sauron's tower Barad-dur. Naturally, it was much easier to draw the bottom of the tower and leave the top to the imagination, and in truth it took Peter Jackson to finally push me to consider the summit. As for the Ringwraith and his fell steed, they came more or less with the landscape.

Lisenssi: John Howe on ilmoittanut kotisivujensa keskustelufoorumilla ehdot kuviensa julkaisemiseen muilla sivustoilla:

To put it in a nutshell, there are four conditions for use of any of my imagery on a web site (not including of course photos by other persons; in that case their permission must be requested).

• 1. That the use be strictly non-commercial.
• 2. That the work be properly credited.
• 3. That a clear link to www.john-howe.com be provided.
• 4. Last but not least, that the use of the image be in accordance with the image itself. This is perhaps hard to make clear, but I would refuse, for example, use of one of my pictures to promote ideas, concepts or undertakings with which I disagree, or for which the image's prime purpose is only to attract attention to something entirely different.

Lisenssi