With an Annie Leibovitz image of The Sopranos
posed as if comprising The Last Supper
on the cover, this book may be blasphemous to some, but it riffs on an artistic tradition that is hundreds of years old. Perez, curator of photography at the Israel Museum, notes in his introduction that a trait that differentiates relgiously allusive photography from painting "is the unconditional focus on the person acting as Christ while the background generally suffers from an obvious lack of attention." Photos from 19th-century masters like Julia Margaret Cameron, Fred Holland Day and Oscar Gustav Rejlander bear this out; their composed images of Christ and the Virgin rivet attention on the figures. Yet Orlan's Madonna at the Garage in Assumption on a Pneumatic
offers a colorful visual composition worthy of Van Eyck. With 195 plates, including work from Man Ray, Robert Mapplethorpe and young British artist Sam Taylor-Wood, the book covers a lot of photographic ground. The final essay, "Jesus on the Silver Screen," explores the possibilities of Christian imagery in moving pictures. The title's promised revelation may not come, but this is a welcome update to a dormant genre. (May)
