On JRR Tolkien, Middle Earth, Ted Nasmith, balrogs, and angelic beings in the Bible and elsewhere: a foray into the Dark : spiritual warfare in Art and culture
Peace and frailty in warfare
It is the natural state of man to desire peace. In the world of art, the most peaceful images of deep longing for this are most often found in the state of evocative landscapes; endless waves on the sea, great tapestries of stars or loveclad clouds, or great fields of lavender or wheat and effulgent light, and these lend to the former desire intrinsic to human hope. On the other hand, life in any age has been full of conflict, and the conflicts, and paradises, as interpreted by Ted Nasmith and his contemporaries since, inspired by Tolkien’s works of literature, give a wider berth for war and horror as well as visions of peace than many other artistic expressions. This is a tribute not only to the painter or maker of drawings, but to J.R.R. Tolkien’s own spiritual visions. A prime example of the disparity in Tolkien inspired works are the many artist renderings of the clash between Gandalf and the Balrog, and the serene landscapes of Valinor or the white spires of Gondolin.
…morals and angels…
The rendering of the forces of darkness are often one of the more esoteric denominations, the various depictions can blur many other lines than Good vs. Evil,(although there is a great amount of nuance between the outcomes of the rigid clash). In Nasmiths visualization, Gandalf’s stand before the balrog of Moria, on the bridge above the abyss in Moria, has in it’s purpose the conjuration that elevates the thrill of the triumphant battle, forces long opposed within the roots of secrecy and unseen conflict. Much like our own world! Nasmith is rather unique and precise, but carries the same heavyhanded, and grimly spiritual, even Biblical grandiosity as older artists who sought the designs of malevolent forces such as Gustave Dore. Dore’s wildly epic and superior command over portrayals of the very real spiritual forces that he, like so many others, could only guess at, are mirrored in the Tolkien mythos by some. Where Ted Nasmith’s alien balrog, stark yet concealed in black, are consigned to a master writer by a master painter, Dore before him and contemporaneous artists both lend a hand to show us the clash of shadows with a failing or hopeful or triumphant light.
In reality, for many people, the ultimate foray into vile art depictions might be Satan. Gustave Dore depicted him falling from heaven, and in other paintings of heavenly clashes. In Catholicism, however, there is a corruption from the Biblical in the depiction of cherubs. Cherubs in the patronage of the Holy Roman Empire have long been depicted as babies or infants with tiny wings, and it is verified this comes from the Roman pagan myth of the god Cupid, or Eros. However, the Bible itself, in Ezekiel and Revelation, shows them as noble, extremely powerful beings, almost monstrous in appearance, with four faces and six wings, attending to God about his throne or chariot. Dore is at least one early artist to have altered, especially in the century since, the views of spirit creatures.
paradigms of faith and legend:
I find the closest correlation to this Catholic art and higher Biblical authority as it is found, in Tolkien’s grudge against Shakespeare for “Midsommer Nights Dream.” The reason for the grudge was that Shakespeare transformed, diminituzed and amputated the former glory of elves in Celtic myth, which was their origin, making them instead faeries of tiny size and quaint idioms for pagan natural forces. Tolkien restored elves to their rightful glory, the pre-Christian Celtic, where it was handed down orally that they were seen as beings that “shone brighter than the sun.” This ties in with the cherubs we spoke of earlier. Perhaps the elves were angels?
The kicker of all this information about cherubs is that, also in Ezekiel, Satan, before his corruption, is called in the Bible “the anointed cherub.” Art can go down wrong paths, and insightful paths. It never really ends, where a war between domineering forces, good or wrong is ever present in so many human minds and experiences. The artist, like poets and writers, has a great task that can last a lifetime of enhancements in his own self, whether for peace, or disorder.
Or, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn pondered:
“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Tolkien and Giger’s demons
The artist is no exception to this when he chooses to indulge a work dwelling on inner conflicts or external malevolence. As a significant note, Ted Nasmith is one of the first and only artists to depict his balrog as wingless. This has credence in Tolkien’s own description of this scene. Tolkien was very exact with words most of the time, so when he says the balrog had what was “like wings” it may have been a pointer. The balrog is described as causing or forming shadows in and about itself, thus the passage “it’s wings were spread from wall to wall” in Moria may have been illustrative and not literal. The other piece of evidence we have is the balrogs who followed in the drake’s “train” during the siege of Gondolin, where the dragons were landbound and thus the balrogs as well. The importance of this is that winged creatures, when spiritual, are in due glory and honor and almost any thought of holy angels, or the fallen ones, has this visible motif. Perhaps a wingless balrog because this strips them of any angelic grace they might claim.There is something holy, and obviously heavenly, about winged creatures, even a simple sparrow. Dore’s angels, mentioned earlier, are given these heavenly honorable body members. Like balrogs of other artists than Nasmith, Dore’s demonic depictions, when winged, are of the corrupted, batlike kind.
Balrogs, being spirit creatures in corporeal, and fabricated dark gods, may be fiction, but placing them in the same dark realm where knowledge of wrong things takes place is not a erring ideation and should be noted as almost natural. What is more real, the the demons you can’t see, or the realer, at least in imaginings, of the same attributes you secondarily found in a fictional world? There is no difference except in the nuance of the higher spiritual mind, which should be guarded against these thoughts. This is how I try to explain balrogs to myself and anyone asking. Reading that passage in Fellowship of the Ring has had a life long impact. For me personally, balrogs and Morgoth may be a painter’s vision of a literary vision, but enhanced by pencil or brush, they are real in the sense of their manifestation in canvas as well as the place in every human heart that must conceal or fight the tendency towards corruption. This is not just theology related; it was a real struggle for the medieval and Renaissance artists and it continues in our day. As Nietszche said: “Gaze long into the Abyss, and the abyss gazes back into you.” Gandalf, when facing the balrog, was above this abyss, in his courage, and his fall into it is decidedly un-Nietszchesque as he returns even purer for his deed. It is not ignored that Nietszche also said “God is dead”, in my view the hubris maybe of philosophy and misleading circles.
Nasmith’s balrog is also one of the most severe and evil in appearance in contrast to other Tolkien inspired artists. You can clearly see it’s grotesque, hateful face and it’s tail has a strident, shell-like appearance, it’s vicious mien and cavorting stance creating a great hostile overcast to the painting. Gandalf, alone with sword aloft is in stark contrast, a white light about him. The balrogs skin may have been influenced by H.R. Giger’s “Alien” form, especially its tail, but Giger was far more a delver into the occultic evils than Nasmith would ever be.
Whose depiction in color or graphite is most accurate to Tolkien’s vision of the balrog in Moria? Nasmith is a personal favorite, but there are other stellar examples.
What Nasmith strove towards, what his inspirer JRR Tolkien’s hand had an intricate ideology stored up for, and this amid rudimentary Catholic rigors, were the real evils of humanity and this was spread by war and lies. Shadows are a concealing or decieving force, it is fitting balrogs emanate them. It is not my purpose to propose theological or religious views, but their influence cannot be ignored, especially of the horrors as we are now to explore.
“Jacob wrestled…”
One of the purposes of evil forces and the abyss is pain, found in stark portrayal in the almost childish grasp over these subjects in medieval art full of the now silly appearing demons and the more noble sculptures and drawings of angels. Pain, it can be said, is at times a vehicle for the demonic. And fear is pain. The release of these inchoate, and ancient, forces takes us on the journey to the place in the minds of braver artists, and the artwork then makes them more comprehensible, or perhaps just more corporeal.
In the video game cinematic for “Dark Souls II” the narrator proclaims about the hero and his foes : “But the brighter the flame, the greater the shadow.” Video games in their history have long been curators and patrons of many forms of concept, and the artistic premises of spiritual conflict in the much more modern veins of computer gaming is in the same city of riches as a Tolkien chapter or a Ted Nasmith painting.
In childhood, where video games became a lifelong obsession and my knowledge of Tolkien was yet a distant fascination, not long before I discovered the fascinating description of the balrog in Lord of the Rings, I came across an equally fascinating painting called “Salvation” by Marc Fishman depicting demons and angels struggling over human souls. It was in an old Spectrum edition of that year, which is a yearly released book of sci-fi and fantasy art, still contemporary. During the research of this article I recently found it again almost by chance. Aside from balrogs or Morgoth or any myth, I think Tolkien, if he saw it, might see it as more real than most fantastical art. He was a Catholic, after all!
Again I will say the artist is no exception when he chooses to indulge in a work of blackened forces, as per Solzhenitsyn’s elaborately sagelike quote. For many professing themselves Christian, Marc Fishman’s painting may strike the same chord the Renaissance artists did, or Gustave Dore’s grim depictions that seems to lend credence to the “awful, distant” throne of a God whose qualities are defined by the doctrinal folly.
Conclusion:
It is the natural desire for mankind to desire peace, but the reality of evils in our world and the thrill of the fantastic will upset any equilibrium for now, and Ted Nasmith, or Gustave Dore or Tolkien himself, along with the artists now and to come, will wrestle within and against the inchoate to make the formless into the formed. I am convinced there will be a lasting, eternal peace one day. That lasting eternal peace has been evoked in countless ways in art as well. It must be taken in fragments only, but the heart may and can know it when it makes itself known. I am convinced that likely every human has at least some knowledge of that bliss, the paradise lost to be regained, in his own experience in some way, no matter how feeble, no matter how dark the life may be. I find this knowledge in concrete form for my closing. It is found in Ecclesiastes 3:11, and perhaps it speaks of the abolishment of the abyss that Nietzsche, or Dore, or Solzhenitsyn or Nasmith or Tolkien or any other prominent artist knew, the fall of balrogs and Satan and the conquest of light:
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has even put eternity in their heart; yet mankind will never find out the work that the true God has made from start to finish.”
– King Solomon, Ecclesiastes 3:11
