Sunday, February 20, 2011

jrr tolkien



john ronald reuel tolkien is best known for his world and his text. stepping into the shoes of a god, he wrote everything from creation mythology to generations upon generations of history; from both written and spoken languages to entire cultures and precious artifacts. i chose the most recognizable imagery i could to depict him. i used the indexes of his monogram, a map of middle-earth, his calligraphy style, the red book of westmarch (the supposedly hobbit-penned origin of his stories), and, of course, the one ring. i then added the symbols of a pipe, (which does index his tendency to smoke one, but also symbolizes the prototypical wise english gentleman, as well as implying the emergence of the world-map from his smoke), and a feather quill, symbolozing his position as a scribe in a sense more historical than typewriter-modern. the most basic of these things will be recognizable to people with even a bit of cultural literacy, considering the 2004-2006 movies, while the most obscure might only be picked up by a very few, who could then feel very clever indeed for figuring everything out.

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