Discriptions of characters in middle earth

[Hobbits are people too]

Hi.

I have been an avid listener to the pods. Have listened to every single episode for years but never gotten around to the forums.

Anyways, this is something I've always found entriquing about Tolkien.

You hardly ever get descriptions on visual appearances.
The ones that spring to mind when writing is. (Excuse my paraphrasing)

Frodo - taller then some and fairer then most. A perky fellow with a cleft in his chin and a bright eye

Sauruman - a tall forehead with deep darkling eyes. Flecks of black in his white hair

Gandalf - bristling eyebrows that stick out of the brim of his hat.

Aragorn - scruffy (weeks in hedges and ditches)

Gimli - beard and stocky

There are more of course but I find it cool that many of the characters are not depicted at all and still you have a clear notion in your mind as to what they look like.
Take Sam, Merry and Pippin for example. Not a single information as to their haircolour, looks etc.

Might just be me that has gotten a hang up on this. Just find it so intriguing.

Sorry for long post.
What do you guys/girls think?

 

[Nicholas Palazzo]

I do like that the Professor leaves such descriptions up to the imagination of the reader. One of the things I find most jarring in fiction is when the author takes you aside to tell you what someone looks like. It always feels odd to me for some reason.

 

[Jim Deutch]

With all the (much complained-about) landscape descriptions in the books, it is indeed a bit odd that Tolkien rarely paints us much of a picture of the actual characters. I wonder if this has to do with his artistic talents, which tend much more towards landscape and often leave the people as indistinct smudges, when they are present at all. For example, Bilbo riding the barrel here:
https://www.ft.com/content/c7ec7e70-4d98-11e8-97e4-13afc22d86d4
Or the paperback cover of The Two Towers here:
http://www.fleurfinebooks.com/product/26913/The-Two-Towers-Tolkien--JRR
(lousy picture: I bet you can't even pick out the two figures at all!) I'd always thought those were Merry and Pippin in Fangorn forest, until I learned that the painting pre-dated LotR, and is actually Turin and Beleg (if I remember correctly).

I suppose its more likely that both these things -- not extensively describing characters in his prose and not drawing detailed characters in his artwork -- stem from the same source -- psychological or whatever -- upon which I'm not prepared to speculate too much...