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pacalin:

A Tolkien Tapestry: Pictures to accompany The Lord of the Rings - by Cor Blok

Fifty years ago, shortly after The Lord of the Rings was first published, Cor Blok read the trilogy and was completely captivated by its invention and epic storytelling.

The breadth of imagination and powerful imagery inspired the young Dutch artist, and this spark of enthusiasm, coupled with his desire to create art that resembled a historical artefact in its own right, led to the creation of more than 100 paintings. Following an exhibition at the Hague in 1961, JRR Tolkien’s publisher, Rayner Unwin, sent him five pictures. Tolkien was so taken with them that he met and corresponded with the artist and even bought some paintings for himself.
 

Many of Cor Blok’s paintings had been sold in the ’90s and were sort of lost. After a meeting with Cor Blok in 2006 I embarked on a quest to find many of the missing paintings. Now it is finally possible to present the complete series and show them all together in one book. The series bears comparison with the Bayeux Tapestry, in which each tells an epic and complex story in deceptively simple style, but beneath this simplicity lies a compelling and powerful language of form that becomes more effective as the sequence of paintings unfolds. Read more here…

Original artwork from the book available for purchase here. Buy the book here, or get the Deluxe Slipcased Edition which is limited to 500 copies and is personally signed by the artist.

Also, an interview with Cor Blok.

Holy wow, do I want his painting of Rivendell. Anyone with a couple thousand pounds to throw around?