
My initial impression after reading this was that there’s not a book out there that calls for this kind of artistic treatment more than the Bible, but looking through John’s old work shows that this is kind of his style. Not always, as he’s clearly changed his style over the years, but fairly often. This is the part where I point out that I’m not any kind of an art scholar or student, so I can only hope that nobody is reading these reviews for that kind of viewpoint. If anybody had they would have long ago failed out of art school because of me and would have taken me out in a fairly brutal fashion as revenge, so I’m going to keep assuming that never happened. But the image below, for example, shows Adam and Eve hiding out after eating the forbidden fruit. You can make them out, and you can even (to me) see the fear on their faces, along with a barely defined figure peering around looking for them. In the chaotic lines around it, what else can you make out? This is where things get subjective in a hurry, so consider that a rhetorical question. Other images depict different scenes from the first book in the Bible: there’s Adam being molded from the dust, his getting placed in Eden, the first time he’s shown animals, the woman being made from the rib of Adam, and more; these all come from Genesis, so maybe you can guess what he chose to draw. But each image had me flipping back to it after finishing, looking for details in the din and seeing new things each time. So it was a rewarding experience for me and am curious to experience the next book (which John was nice enough to send my way). It’s well worth checking out, assuming you have an interest in the subject matter. $13






