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Out Of The Sea I Am Come

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"'Et Eärello Endorenna utúlien. Sinome maruvan ar Hildinyar tenn' Ambar-metta' And those were the words that Elendil spoke when he came up out of the Sea on the wings of the wind: 'Out of the Great Sea to Middle-earth I am come. In this place will I abide, and my heirs, unto the ending of the world.'"

I always imagined these lines (as spoken by Elendil) not as some chest-out lordly proclamation, but as something more humble and personal, spoken aloud to no one in particular except perhaps the rising sun over middle-earth; more like a prayer than anything else (like hurin's "day shall come again," it seems to me one of those middle-earthian 'prayers spoken by people who don't know what praying is' moments) It goes better with the image of the escape of the faithful from the Drowning of Numenor as a desperate flight; borne up out of the angry sea by divine grace, the nine ships of the elendili, beaten and torn by the wind and waves, make it to the shore of Middle-earth, there to start over.

I think I kind of blew it on this one. I'd had an image of the moment in my head for years; the great man on his knees in the shallow surf too exhausted to stand, soaked to the skin, his small fleet a battered wreckage behind him, seabirds floating overhead, but as it stands i think the composition's too cluttered with background elements and I'd have been better off leaving it with just Elendil in view. I'm fairly pleased with the way Elendil himself came out, but the wet hair doesn't allow for this very striking, blasted-back shock of hair I'd had in mind - like when moses comes down from seeing the burning bush - as if witnessing firsthand the wrath of God and the destruction of Numenor has marked him in his very bones.

the wet clothes are pretty good though.

Part of the weekly tolkien sketchblog.
Image size
2117x3097px 2.11 MB
Make
Canon
Model
Canon MX890 series Network
© 2014 - 2024 TurnerMohan
Comments23
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Qitian's avatar
I love this. I actually think the wet hair adds to the beaten, exhausted look that makes this so moving. As you say, at the time these lines must have been an acknowledgement of defeat and a prayer of relief rather than a lordly proclamation. I don't think I've ever seen this scene illustrated so I shouldn't be talking in superlatives, but I really feel that this is the perfect depiction of this scene. The wheeling birds and the torn sail and the soaked clothing - and the sketch-like nature of the artwork itself - are incredibly effective!