Tolkien Calendar 2011

The 2011 Tolkien calendar is a major departure from previous calendars, which either with Tolkien's own art or with that of other artists, have depicted Middle earth's landscapes, personalities, and events with great detail. Cor Blok is a Dutch artist who painted the 14 scenes between 1958 and 1962. He visited J.R.R. Tolkien in 1962 and impressed him enough to sell him two of his Middle earth paintings.

In the two page introduction Blok provides for the calendar he draws a distinction between "depicting" and "describing", and refers to his work as "accompanying" rather than "illustrating" The Lord of the Rings. His artwork focusses on the book's characters but only attempts to distinguish them through their weapons, hats, and size. Background detail is minimal to non-existent. Blok admits altering the story in favor of dramatic or artistic license, as in September's "The Slaying of the Nazgul", where Eowyn kills the Ringwraith with a spear rather than a sword so Blok...Read more

This year is definitely a departure from the 'standard form' that many are used to but to me, it is a wonderful addition to the Tolkien Official Calendar collection.

Cor Blok is someone not many are familiar with, even among the Tolkien core fans. I ran into his illustrations some years ago by pure accident. He visited Master Tolkien who liked his work and purchased two of them, in addition to the one he got from Blok as a present. Blok went on to produce the covers for the 1965 unified Dutch edition of Lord of the Rings, as well as the individual books edition that followed.

He created his Tolkien pieces at the time when a lot of artists went for plenty of colours and detail and he wanted to go opposite of this. He also wanted paintings that resembled the old art which influenced the way these were made, that account for the patina of a sorts that is apparent. His style is different for sure but open you mind and truly look. He goes deeper than the mere...Read more

I get that the beauty of art is "in the eye of the beholder" but I must agree with the other reviewer who said he was not interested in staring at this art for an entire month, every month for a year. Sure, it's interesting, but not as a calendar. I can appreciate the artist's approach, and it is actually wonderful to see a completely different viewpoint on creating art for Tolkien's world. I just don't want to stare at it for a year! While the images are interesting, they are not "delightful" nor do they inspire reflection on what was going on in Middle Earth during the scene which is depicted, or how I was feeling when I was reading that part, etc. This will be the first time since they started being published in 1973 that I don't have a Tolkien calendar hanging on my wall. I'd rather look at last years all over again. In fact, I may just do that, just to have the images on my wall. I hope next year's is better. My apologies to Cor Blok. I just think, for me, these are the wrong...Read more