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~ Detail from Frodo in "The Death of Chatterton."
I re-did some older Art Travesty manips....
I have been so pleased with the results working with the new photo program I got at Christmas, I have decided to tweak and even re-do some of my old Frodo art manips. This is just to serve as notice for those of you who save these images in your files. If saved them more than a couple of days ago, please know that these Art Travesties have been redone.
1. The Death of Chatterton, by Henry Wallis, c. 1856.
See original painting here.
Putting Frodo's face into this well-known 19th century painting was one of my first attempts at making an art manip. I loved the way the painting went with the passage from the text (see below), but I never was happy with the way the face fit into the picture. My old program simply couldn't do feathered edges, so if the shadow of the chin line didn't mask the join to the neck, the join was very obvious.
I think the new version is very much improved. Many thanks again to my husband for buying me the new program. I have got so much better at this because of it.
~ Frodo at Farmer Cotton's, per Henry Wallis:
When the Row was ready he went with the Gaffer. In addition to all his other labours he was busy directing the cleaning up and restoring of Bag End; but he was often away in the Shire on his forestry work. So he was not at home in early March and did not know that Frodo had been ill. On the thirteenth of that month Farmer Cotton found Frodo lying on his bed; he was clutching a white gem that hung on a chain about his neck and he seemed half in a dream.
'It is gone for ever,' he said, 'and now all is dark and empty.'
2. The Awakening Conscience, by William Holman Hunt, c. 1853.
To view the original Holman Hunt, click here.
This manip was made from another Pre-Raphaelite's work. I thought it a very pretty, very charming, but very silly picture. In the original painting the young courtesan is rising from her lover's lap because she has seen the light ("the awakening conscience"). With Frodo in the painting, I thought she looked like she had seen the light, too, but one that made her inclined to sit in his lap, not leap out of it.
As a manip, I thought it made a very fine picture of Mr. Baggins (the one of naughty fanfics), entertaining at home.
The original manip was made from a rather small image of the painting, so the resulting manip was not only smaller, it lacked good detail and crispness. The colours were a little smeary and Frodo's face was not quite in focus. I like this version much better.
~ Frodo entertaining at home, per William Holman Hunt:
3. The Fortune Teller, by Caravaggio, c. 1595.
To see the original Caravaggio, click here.
This was another one of my earliest manips. The face I had chosen (a smile from the Grey Havens scene) was enchanting; very saucy, but it looked terribly pasted-on. When I decided to re-do it this week, I tried some different faces.
Finally I chose this one, a near-profile from the Green Dragon scene in the end of RotK. I thought it created quite a different mood. Frodo had looked boyishly confident in the previous version, as if he thought the whole thing a lark or an excuse to chat up the fortune teller. In this one Frodo looks more ambivalent about hearing what she has to say, almost reluctant under a guise of skepticism. I imagine him experiencing just the tiniest prick of foreboding. But the fortune teller's look is one of gentle encouragement, and her touch delicate.
~ Frodo submits to having his fortune told, per Caravaggio:
4. Portrait of a Youth, by Georg Pencz, c. 1544.
To see how greatly Frodo improved this portrait, click here.
This manip was the best of the series in which we in the Harem (at Khazad-dum) snorted over the Tudor fashion of the padded, stiffened cod piece. Ah, what fun we had writing racy, silly vignettes to go with the manips. I made others, but I definitely preferred this one.
Nothing could top the flamboyant, assertive sexuality of this Tudor youth's costume (with it's notably upstanding, flaming red velvet codpiece) -- nothing except the face of Frodo wearing one of his smokiest expressions.
The only thing I re-did on this one was do a better match of tones between the colour of Frodo's face and the hands of the young man in original portrait. (They had not matched well at all.)
~ Frodo, as Georg Pencz's youth:
Well, that's it for this lot.
Next:
I will be presenting my new and improved "full-frontal Frodo's." I re-did the only two Art Travesties that feature Frodo in paintings that are fully nude, the Michelangelo David (I re-did the harsh chin area) and the Reni Bacchus and Ariadne (I gave him an organ transplant).
~ Mechtild
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P.S. I couldn't resist doing one more tweak to Frodo's hair above his collar in The Fortune Teller. I am such a MANIAC! Kill me now! (Naaah, it's fun.)
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Ah, that face comes from such a beautiful scene. I made caps of it last week and hope to present it in a few weeks (the ride with Bilbo to the Grey Havens).
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I really would love to take a class and get really good at it. Maybe a college in the area offers a course?
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~ Frodo submits to having his fortune told, per Caravaggio:
- I just love the expression in his face in this one; you made a fabulous choice of image, and the result is rather amazing :)
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That scene from which the face was taken for The Fortune Teller has a brief but lovely string profile and semi-profile frames in it. I hope to present the sceencaps from it one of these days.
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here via Mews...
I know he really would have been the perfect model for any of the great Masters...
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Re: here via Mews...
This was exactly why I started to make them. In the films, in nearly every frame he looked like a living, breathing painting. Why not see how he looked in other eras of painting?
Thanks so much for commenting, Marigold.
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Re: here via Mews...
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Oh, you meant more new ones. Well, I have seen one or two paintings during my searches that one day might make manips.... :D
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Each has its own emotional impact on me. Frodo in a swoon, at Farmer Cotton's, rips my heart to shreds, and Frodo submitting to having his fortune told makes me smile because of the sceptical expression on his beautiful face.
Frodo entertaining at home to me has a sweet playful atmosphere, and I like to think that the surprised look on the lasses face, is because she has just remembered she’d forgotten to put the Sunday roast in the oven *grin*
Smouldering Frodo, wearing his heart on his sleeve. He is very deep in thought, wondering if he should be less open regarding where is heart lies. Or he is showing off the size of his - - - - income – what did you think I was about to say? * grin *
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You mean he keeps his money in there? I've heard men sometimes used their codpieces as pockets, but as purses? I would love to go shopping with him.
Seriously, Este, thanks so much for your warm, appreciative comments.
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One day a few years ago I saw that painting in someone's signature box at TORc, the LotR messageboard that used to be my regular home. That very day I had been reading the passage I quoted about Frodo at the Cotton's. I thought, "Wow, would that make a great illustration!"
It wasn't till another year later, though, that I tried to make my first manip. But that one have been #1 on my list -- if only I could figure out how to do it.
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btw, I recently saw a pic that I thought would be wonderful for a Frodo art travesty. It is "Love Weeps" by William Adolphe Bouguereau - I found it at www.corbis.de - just enter the title and name in the search box - but it must be somewhere else on the net as well. :) Of course, rather an innocent pic but the belly just reminded me so much of Frodo's CU belly...
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Love Weeps by Wm. A. Bourguereau
This is really not my sort of material, Frodosweetstuff, paritally for its coyness, but mostly for the same reason the Bouguereau below is not, which
Homer and his Guide by Bouguereau
The Homer illlustration is a wonderful painting, and the youth in the image already looks enough like EW as Frodo that it doesn't need any further manipping! But I haven't the urge to do manips of Frodo as a child.
I began to make these as an act of homage to film-Frodo's classical beauty, but also as an act of swoonage for the film/book character with whom I had become enamoured. I just can't get a swoon up for little boy-Frodo, however cheek-pinchingly cute he is (judging from EW's kid roles). I don't mean this in a pederast sort of way. Looking at kid shots of EW is a pleasure, he projects so much charm and personality (although I would not have guessed from his child shots that he would grow up to be so beautiful, really!). It was EW as Frodo, a young man [hobbit] or a youth on the cusp of becoming a man, that fired me to love and inspired me to get creative.
These images would both make great manips, technically speaking, but not ones that I would enjoy swooning over.
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No, boy-Frodo is not the same as grown-up Frodo, especially for the swoon-factor.
*hugs*
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Well there is boy-Frodo and there is boy Frodo.
I don't know if you were looking at this LJ when I did them, but when I posted my screencap series for Elijah Wood in "Ridiculous Thoughts" and "Flipper," I confessed that I appreciated them as fodder for my brain imagining "young teen-aged Frodo" as if he were starring in Willow-wode's RoP: The Hall. Which means I was not looking at them innocently, even if her Frodo is a kid, strictly speaking. He's a kid with a libido as big as Middle-earth, with angst enough to make him desparate to use it. I am grateful Willow has allowed me to become engrossed in her tween-Frodo's relationship with Mac, where he has been working it off.
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Ah yes, that Frodo in RoP has a huge libido. If Mac wasn't there and so willing, he'd probably explode... I once hoped the fic would evolve into F/S but it doesn't look like it any more.
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Which pic - the one of the coy little-boy Cupid?
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*nods* Yes, the Cupid pic. :)
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I was thinking you must be, but not everyone I talk to has read her stories outside the main body of RoP, and your comment made me think perhaps you didn't know Sam was on Frodo's dance card, but in the future. :D
I also think that Sam himself has some growing up to do as well - of a different kind than Frodo, of course.
Actually, Frodosweetstuff, I think her Sam in RoP:Bag End shows surprising maturity and emotional poise for his years and level of experience. He's much further along than Frodo was at a similar same age, or even at Frodo's present age. And what Sam doesn't have in sexual experience (which is where Frodo is waaaaaay ahead of him), he will gain in two shakes when the time comes.
A person as solid and well-adjusted as her Sam only needs to love and the rest will follow, I am betting. Her Sam just doesn't have the sort of anxiety and self-consciousness that would get in the way of letting himself give himself to a sexual experience with someone he cared about. For Frodo, who in her story is a bit of a mess, everything has been a hurdle, even or especially sex, which he is driven to have but enjoys in a driven way. He only now, post-illness on the "Gillyflower" seems to be enjoying not just the sex but the person he's having it with, while he's having it. Sam, I am betting, will have no such trouble.
Of course, Willow has tripped me up several times in the past when I have tried to see ahead to where she is going, so I could be ALL wrong, LOL.
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I think her Sam in RoP:Bag End shows surprising maturity and emotional poise for his years and level of experience
Yes, that is true. But on the other hand, I think that he needs to leave a bit of his upbringing behind to be the mate that Frodo needs - especially if we think of the quest later on.
Agree with you about your take on Frodo and sex. :)
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Really? What's she been writing beside new chapters of Bag End? You can tell I'm really out of the loop. I'm a huge fan of "Nexus," but was not aware she had done anything else with their relationship apart from her hobbit pile stories, which I don't count as portraying actual love affairs. The sex in those seems more for comfort and a sense of belonging to a group than anything else.
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As DB she has written and is still finishing a big M/F work, a series of interrelated stories, called "Counterpoint." I think she said in her opening fic to that series that she had been inspired originally by Willow's Merry/Frodo relationship as it develops in Rites of Passage. Her story grew into something that goes from before Bilbo's departure until after Frodo has sailed.
(Not a fan of piles of any species; prefer in-depth relationships; although, having said that, and having read a few, even hobbit piles vary considerably in tone and appeal.)
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:)
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thanks so much for sharing!
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the first one nearly kills me ... Frodo's face fits so very well ...
For me those art works are my beauty of the day, I'm very close to tears and another time too moved to write more.
Take care my dear, have a wonderful day.
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Love it!
The third one - as you say the smile from the Grey Havens scene is enchanting. It makes my heart beat faster. Unbelievable it's a manip dearie!
And the last one ... unbelievable ... gorgeous.
And as always I would say ... nothing to top those pictures ... until I'm looking at another Mechtild manip
*sighs and stares for a looong looong time*
Thank you my dear! It's always a pleasure to come home to your journal...
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The third one was full of drama and suspense, I thought. The fourth? Total melt for me. Oh, that outfit, with that pose, and that LOOK! Smoulder, smoulder, smoulder. I used the same Frodo face for the Bacchus of Caravaggio. Yum.