Book review: The Art of The Lord of the Rings

The Art of The Lord of the Rings book cover

I had since quite a while pending to read The Art of The Lord of The Rings, and I had ignored it so much that I didn't even knew that it was based on the movies trilogy. Having art pieces from Alan Lee and John Howe, I thought it would be based on the classic drawings that I remember from my childhood... But no, although it features artwork and text from those known artists, among others, it is all tied to the movies. This is not bad on itself, just that I had to adjust my expectations. I guess I'll have to get my hands on the other art book with the same name someday!

Much of the content, which consists on around 500 illustrations, sketches and drawings, was the initial inspiration or initial iterations before the filming of the movies, so I really like how many of the illustrations predate the final look, by showing different approaches to characters, scenarios, and sometimes even simply colors and themes. We get to see different versions of Gollum, more armoured orcs and elfs, iterations on different iconic buildings... Always with very high quality and beautiful imagery.

After the initial "shock", it was a pleasant surprise to find all new content based on some of my favourite movies. It even made me now prioritize reading the books again - has been really long since I last did - in order to proper see the differences between both mediums.


Book review: The Art of The Lord of the Rings published @ by

Categories: Books

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