Gandalf The Grey and Bilbo at Rivendell — Print & Oil Painting

Nearly every painting of this valley looks up at it or across at it. This one looks down. We are standing on a grass ledge high on the right-hand wall, and the whole settlement lies below us, roofs and bridges and falling water, so the first thing the picture delivers is not wonder but altitude.

Two travellers share the ledge and both have their backs to us. The tall one wears a blue-grey cloak with the hood down, white hair over the shoulders, and holds a staff with a coiled head that stands taller than he does. The small one beside him has a green cloak, a satchel on a strap, and bare feet planted in the wet moss. Those feet do more characterising than a face would have done.

The buildings are the pleasure of the piece. Steep gabled roofs in oxblood and cream sit on ledges directly over the drop, a slim arch of a bridge crosses a gorge with nothing under it, and tier after tier of white water falls away beneath the foundations.

The light comes from the far end of the gorge, a low sun caught in the notch between the cliffs, so the valley is lit from behind and everything nearer to us sits in half shadow with mist eating the edges.

Rivendell exists in this story to be reached, and the painter has understood that the arrival matters more than the address. Part of our Lord of the Rings collection, beside the morning the wizard first turned up at the small one's gate and the same valley with nobody in it at all.