When I was reading Humphrey Carpenter’s biography of J.R.R. Tolkien, I was astonished to learn the extent of Tolkien’s artistic side. He loved drawing from the time he was a young boy and continued to develop the craft into his adulthood, illustrating his own pictures for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Not only did he enjoy creating art, but he was also greatly inspired by it.  

Among Tolkien’s possessions was a carefully preserved postcard reproduction of Josef Madlener’s Der Berggeist (translated as The Mountain Spirit), which shows an old man with a white beard and wide-brimmed hat sitting on a rock in the wooded mountains. On the cover in which he kept it was written, “Origin of Gandalf.”

Of course, Gandalf is not simply the man in the picture. He is Gandalf the Grey. He is the leader of the Fellowship of the Ring. He is Mithrandir. He is the Balrog Conqueror. He is the White Rider. He is the embodiment of Goodness, Beauty, and Truth—a hero from time immemorial.

No one but Tolkien could have looked at Der Berggeist and imagined all that. Nevertheless, we have to wonder: Would Tolkien have created Gandalf the way he did without that picture?

Probably not.

And so the old adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” may actually come up short with Tolkien. (The combined word count of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is close to 700,000, and Gandalf is one of the most central characters in those tales.)

In a similar fashion, I frequently use pictures as story prompts with my students. There are many great resources like The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg, which are specially designed as story prompts, but beautiful works of art can be used just as easily. I tend to choose ones that go along with something my class reads in History, Literature, or Religion.

When we read about the fire in Rome, I project this painting:

When we read Little Red Riding Hood, I project this painting:

When we imagine what Christ’s hidden life was like, I project this painting:

In every case, I have students look at the painting on their own for a period of time. Then, I guide a discussion on their observations. We consider the artistic elements of the painting, focusing on things like form, color, contrast, tone, light source, focal points, and small details.

Once we have seen the painting, then we consider its story elements. I ask the students what the artist may have been trying to say to us, the viewers. Inevitably, they have many different ideas, each colored by their own personal response to the picture.

Finally, students are ready to write their own stories, following the one scene in one sitting rule. What they come up with tends to be quite different from one student to the next, but the trace of the original picture remains in some form, although drawn anew with fresh lines.

One striking aspect of this kind of storytelling exercise is that it compels students to think in terms of visual imagery. Because they are immersed in the picture, they make an extra effort to draw it in their words.

And who’s to say how many words a picture will be worth to the aspiring storyteller?

I ran into a former student recently. No longer a pre-teen, she was headed to college and brimming with enthusiasm. She told me that she was still writing a story based on one of the pictures we had used as a prompt in seventh grade. That was one of the best things I’ve ever heard from a student.

To think that one picture stirred all that storytelling!

First Image Credit: Der Berggeist by Josef Madlener, c. 1925-2930

Second Image Credit: Nero’s Torches by Henry Siemiradzki, 1882

Third Image Credit: Little Red Riding Hood by Jessie Willcox Smith, 1911

Fourth Image Credit: Shadow of Death by William Holman Hunt, 1873