The image I chose for this entry in the new series for Saint Tolkien is a drawing by Czech artist Matěj Čadil called “Bilbo in Rivendell.” He has made dozens of excellent works in different media based on Tolkien’s writings (and many other subjects), but I decided on this one for a few reasons. First, I have always enjoyed the monochrome drawing style which only uses crosshatched shading to indicate form, and this is a great example of that technique, achieving a high level of naturalism despite its relative simplicitly. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, this image struck me as having a depth and weight beyond what it might appear at first glance.
Tolkien, who once said that he was “in fact a Hobbit (in all but size)”, had many similarities to Bilbo: “I like gardens, trees and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food (unrefrigerated)… I like, and even dare to wear in these dull days, ornamental waistcoats. I am fond of mushrooms (out of a field); have a very simple sense of humour (which even my appreciative critics find tiresome); I go to bed late and get up late (when possible). I do not travel much.”1 Both Tolkien and Bilbo loved books, maps and languages and were masters of story and song. Alongside their consistently humble natures, both had a great intellect and imagination and were friends with some of the wisest people of their time (the Inklings; Gandalf, Elrond, Aragorn). And, when both of them got old, they found solace in peace and quiet, the company of good friends and the memory of other worlds.
A theme that was dear to Tolkien, seen most clearly in his allegorical tale Leaf by Niggle, is the relation of art to time. Middle-earth itself is filled with the ruins of past artefacts, and many good people, such as Galadriel, tried to preserve this world in what Tolkien called a “fugitive”2 sense, bypassing the due punishment for original sin in death and decay. Tolkien struggled with this personally, wondering, as in his allegory, if art could be continued in Heaven, as an eternal imitation of God the Creator, so that all our good labors here would not end in futility. He also voiced this hope to his son Michael: “There is a place called ‘heaven’ where the good here unfinished is completed; and where the stories unwritten, and the hopes unfulfilled, are continued.”3
This is why Bilbo handed on his great book, the Red Book of Westmarch, to Frodo, who made his own additions, just as Christopher completed much of his father’s legendarium, before giving it to Sam, who then passed it on to his daughter Elanor and her descendants. Art, like all good things, is truly never-ending, because God is never-ending: He preserves what is good and corrects what is evil. This is the certainty that has animated the saints throughout history and gives us today, whatever good we may cherish, some consolation, so that, even when we are aged like Bilbo, we can find some measure of peace.
J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien (eds), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (London: HarperCollins, 2012), 288. Kindle.
J.R.R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories,” at University of Houston, at https://uh.edu.
Tolkien, Letters, 55.