Tolkien's Lord of the Rings inspired work depicting Sauron's minions during the climax of the Battle of Pelennor Fields.
Painted in 1981, this painting is the largest of Stephen Hickman's Tolkien inspired works. Published in Stephen's first art book - The Art of Stephen Hickman. Published in Realms of Tolkien: Images of Middle-earth.
I had first seen this painting on Stephen Hickman's web site back in 2008 I believe. It immediately mesmerized me. When I read the books 25 years before (and many times since), I had a vague, out of focus mental vision of this part of the story. That vision was more or less eroded by Peter Jackson's movies post 2001. Don't get me wrong though, the movies were and probably still are my favorite movies of all time. However the movies were clearly more inspired by the artwork and animated movies produced over the 40 years before then by anyone's mental vision of the story. So what I really loved about this painting is it was genuinely unique, not influenced by Jackson's movies. It resurrected that original mental vision I had so many years before and additionally brought focus to it. In a way, it was like re-discovering a lost relative.
The best I could do in 2008 then and for years after was simply set it as my desktop background and my wallpaper, phone, etc. Then, in October 2015 I was able to purchase it.
"The drums rolled louder. Fires leaped up. Great engines crawled across the field; and in the midst was a huge ram, great as a forest-tree a hundred feet in length, swinging on mighty chains. Long had it been forging in the dark smithies of Mordor, and its hideous head, founded of black steel, was shaped in the likeness of a ravening wolf; on it spells of ruin lay. Grond they named it, in memory of the Hammer of the Underworld of old."
