The White Tower of Elwing
The Lost Road by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien
Grafton Books, 1993
Guilty as charged, I plundered the composition from a painting by the 19th century French artist Jean Lecomte du Nouy. The Victorian painters and their French colleagues, (unceremoniously labelled "pompiers", pilloried, ignored or dismissed as the reactionary purveyors of the discutable morals of the colonial powers) may not measure up to modern taste, but boy, could they paint! Their historical and narrative (and often monumental) paintings are a constant source to me of envy and mild dismay.
They are truly wonderful artists nonetheless.
