Gregori Campana ART 166

Tolkien: Maker of middle earth

The morgan library and museum is one of the most educational museums that I have

seen, the first time I saw the museum in all their splendor and the brutalist design it was an

experience but also I would pay 13 dollars again to see it all again. With that out of the way my

overall museum experience was really good, the exhibitions were really good in especially the

Tolkien exhibition it gave me a whole new reason to love that, guy more than he revolutionizes

the fantasy genre, but also he was a world builder and an artist. This is why I'm going to write

about “Tolkien: maker of middle earth” in which you see paraphernalia of what he used to write

about the Hobbit and Lord of the rings, which is really amazing, so that's why I'm going to write

about it. I always have admirer Tolkien as an artist, writer, and storyteller the way he makes the

world in a creative way, he gives the world a breath of life and a credible story that almost seems

like the real history of the world

In The Morgan Library & Museum I saw the exhibition of Tolkien maker of middle earth

, it was an interesting exhibition,when I was a kid I always heard of lord of the rings and the

hobbit but never saw them or read them personally, mostly because they were so long, so

whenever I tried to read them, I started to bore myself, with all the details of the world and the

fantasy, I didn't have an idea of how much Tolkien cared about, about those minimal details

which made the world he created, he even made maps about the world that he created he thought

about everything he created, for that I admire him and that's why I gonna talk about his

exhibition, in where the term fantasy that everyone knows started, he is a pioneer of the genre

and I would be more proud to write about him. Everything about him is amazing the way he used

mythology and make it his own for example elves they come from Norse mythology and made
Gregori Campana ART 166

them an allegory for the smart and isolation, they see themselves as superior to other, they are

superhuman.

Before I talk about let's talk about Tolkien and his backstory. Tolkien was born in

Bloemfontein, South Africa, on January 3, 1892, when he was a little kid he was bitten by a

spider and almost die, when he was a teenager he lived in the West Midlands in Tolkien’s

childhood was a complex mixture of the grimly industrial Birmingham conurbation and the

quintessentially rural stereotype of England. After some time he was accepted in Oxford and

started studying Unlike so many of his contemporaries, Tolkien did not rush to join up

immediately on the outbreak of war, but returned to Oxford, where he worked hard and finally

achieved a first-class degree in June 1915.

The first artwork that I saw was is “conversation with Smaug” the art seems like a

children books but, he drew the picture by himself, the picture represents a red dragon in a hoard

of gold and a hobbit talking with it. Smaug is a greedy character in nature and this picture shows

it in particular, here is a quote from the Hobbit "I kill where I wish and none dare resist. I laid

low the warriors of old and they're like is not in the world today. Then I was but young and

tender. Now I am old and strong, strong." this quote goes hand in hand for this drawing because

it shows how someone with so much money would be that way.

The piece that I saw was “ the first Lord of the rings map” it was really amazing how

much attention to details he used to like making a whole maps, a quote he says “I wisely started

with a map.” in Tolkien ideas everything starts with a map, with map you can see their

surroundings and now the kind of government that surround those maps, the hobbit village from

the forest of the elves, them the language For Tolkien, the languages came first. Middle Earth

and the "Lord of the Rings" epics were created around his constructed languages. Basically, he
Gregori Campana ART 166

invented words and needed speakers. He created the 15 different Elvish dialects, along with

languages for the Ents, the Orcs, the Dwarves, the men and the Hobbits and more. this is how

you make good storytelling, has is a worldbuilder.

In conclusion, The morgan library and museum is one of the most educational museums

that I have seen, the first time I saw the museum in all their splendor and the brutalist design it

was an experience but also I would pay 13 dollars again to see it all again. With that out of the

way my overall museum experience was really good, the Tolkien exhibit was the most amazing

thing about the museum.