Eowyn and the Lord of the Nazgul



70 X 100 cm (39 1/4 x 27 1/2 inch), oil on MDF board, 2011



At the beginning of the year 2000 I did a sketch (see below) that has marked the start of a long journey towards the finished painting that I am presenting you today .

I do not remember exactly why this scene from The Lord of the Rings book survived for so long in my mind, while many other good concepts never got the chance to be materialized. However, a few years later I did a couple of new rough sketches of the same idea. Because I did not have enough time, or did not get the opportunity to go on with this project, I abandoned the idea once again.

 

About a year ago I met a collector who asked me to do a painting for his collection. He gave me the freedom to choose the subject. I suggested to him to do the Eowyn painting. It turned out that the scene with Eowyn fighting the mighty Lord of the Nazgul was one of his favorite moments from the entire book trilogy. So, looking through the previously made sketches, and realizing that I still did not yet hit the right “note”, I did another sketch, a tiny one . This time I felt that everything was on the right place.  

As you can see, the genesis of the composition was very slow and gradual, and as the time passed by, I was more and more certain about what I actually wanted to say with this painting.

From the very beginning I was not quite sure how exactly to deal with this scene that was illustrated  many times by numerous illustrators, including Frank Frazetta , Greg and Tim Hilderbrandt and John Howe among others. Not long ago Donato Giancola depicted the same scene and created an excellent illustration. The question that I often asked myself was; how should I approach this popular scene in order to avoid repetition of already used compositional solutions? What must I do to avoid being influenced by the known and celebrated paintings done by already mentioned artists? I did not want to find myself in the situation of competing with the striking depiction of the Eowyn’s fight with the Lord of the Nazgul from the Peter Jackson’s movie either. Is there a dimension of this fascinating moment from the story that was, consciously or unconsciously, “overlooked” by the other artists?

After some thinking about this problem I came to the conclusion that I will have to be myself, and do it in my own, slightly unorthodox way. In other words, I knew I would have to make another interpretation of the subject, risking again to cause the irritation among some puritan Tolkien fans.

First of all, I thought to myself, I am going to try to make yet another fusion between the fine art painting and illustration. The important question was; how should I do that in this particular case? Well, in any case, by approaching the subject slightly more like a fine art painter, and less like an illustrator, first of all by avoiding to be too obviouse, too descriptive, too illustrative. Instead, I thought, I should have to focus on one crucial aspect of that whole scene, and explore its emotional and symbolical content, rather than stay on the surface of the event. This aspect had to be important and  inspiring.

Secondly, I intended to use as few elements as possible in order to depict it. It meant a simple, kind of minimalistic composition, that still had to be interesting and striking. All details that were not serving the main goal of the composition had to go away. No dead bodies of the orks and man laying scattered all over the battlefield, no broken arms, no flags, no beasts, no king Theoden, no Nazgul (just a wing)…All these tempting things had to be removed from the stage just to give the chosen aspect appropriate attention and to make it recognizable and “readable”.

Thirdly, I tried to avoid, as much as it was possible, the literal pictorial translation of the text lines from the book. As long as this helped me make my point clear and to reach my artistic goal, I was ready to change some details from the text, by introducing  inaccurate elements. For instance, I gave Eowyn a full-plate armor, which she, of course, does not wear in the book. I had a good reason for that; first of all I wanted to emphasize the contrast between the masculine aspect of the event on one side, and the feminine presence on the other. This is a crucial aspect of this part of the story, as we know, for no man could destroy the dark Lord…but what about a woman, my Lord Nazgul…?

Besides, when thinking of the symbolism of the scene, I thought I could use a bit of shiny metal that reflects light, as opposed to the dark evil Lord of the Nazgul, who is black (more or less, in my painting) and who absorbs the light – black being a “selfish” color for it does not reflect much light, but rather keeps it for itself, unlike the white color that generously reflects all light back into the world.

And last but not least, I like to paint shiny things like metal armor and other kinds of metal objects. This is probably the illustrator within me who is attracted to the glittering surface of the things and enjoys depicting them…(I must have been a magpie in my previous incarnation)

So, that is how I came to the final composition that is quite plain, liberated from most of the unnecessary details, and whose intention is to evoke a certain feeling , rather than to offer an accurate account of the event from the story. In fact, what I tried to do is to freeze  that moment of Eowyn’s collapse and use it as a symbol of the possible collapse of light and good in the world of Tolkien’s book. In my opinion, this is a kind of mystic moment, that we encounter in our lives from time to time. It happens sometimes that we find ourselves in a desperate situation when the hope is reduced to nothing and when all is pointing out towards the end without a happy end. Yet, something unexpected and unexplainable happens that saves us from disaster. It can be a person who gives us the helping hand, or an unexpected commission, or a newly invented medicine, or whatever ( I personally experienced this wonder almost 20 years ago when I fled my native country). I find this a wonderful mystery and I tried to refer to in my Eowyn painting.

But, where’s hobbit than, you might ask? For in case of Eowyn , he was that “unexpected commission”, her true savior. Well, there he is…

Because of the compositional reasons I had to keep him almost invisible. I did not want him to interfere too much with the swing movement of the Lord Nazgul. However, his presence in the painting is suggested  by a tiny glimmer on his helmet.

At the end, it is up to you, dear artists and art lovers, to decide whether I achieved my goal in this painting, or not. Needless to say, this is just one of many ways of approaching the problem of interpretation in illustration. I think that as long as you know what you want to achieve and how to do it, it cannot go wrong.