“Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron..."

[delphipsmith]

"...Here is a book that will break your heart." C.S. Lewis, on The Lord of the Rings.

Benjamin Harff, a German art student, has made this doubly true. He decided for his capstone project to do a hand-illuminated, hand-bound copy of Tolkien's The Silmarillion. He spent six months on it and had the volume bound in leather by a professional hand book-binder (he assisted).

It is the most beautiful thing I've seen, such a remarkable labor of love and art.

Here are pictures, and an interview + more pictures.

In these days of 140-character tweets and instant this-n-that, my heart is reassured when I see evidence of appreciation for Things That Take Time.

Also of course we wants it precious, we wants it!!!

Comments

[duco-lacuna.livejournal.com]

That's just ... incredible! How did he manage to create such a beautiful piece of work in such a relatively short amount of time?!? I just adore every single bit about it (a bit of an old-book freak here).

This is just an inspiring reminder that amazing things can be done when you set your heart on it. Thanks for sharing this. Now I'm off to squee about it to everyone else in the house. :)

[delphipsmith]

He says in the article that he printed the text on a laser printer so he "only" had to the letters by hand. "Only"!? ::dies::

Doesn't it make you want to closet yourself for a few hours with a box of fine-point magic markets and a stack of parchment?