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Browsing in tall grass, or showering his parched hide in a cool river, the elephant moves with unhurried majesty. But for how long? In Elephants (Abrams; 255 pages; $50) Photographer Reinhard Künkel notes that during the 1970s a tenfold increase in the price of ivory, from $6 to $60 a kilogram, meant the death sentence for thousands of Africa's pachyderms. Hunters steal into national parks at night and, using automatic weapons, snares and poisoned arrows, kill dozens of animals at a time. The elephants' tusks are cut off and the huge corpses left to rot. During 1976 alone, writes Künkel, the ivory from 23,360 Kenyan elephants was sold to dealers in Hong Kong. The photographer, however, is as relentless as the poachers, discovering the beasts in surprisingly graceful and poignant stances. Künkel's work also manages to reveal why elephants have such a hold on our imaginations. It is not only their size but the strange feeling that one is seeing two creatures in one: the great body and head, and the serpentine trunk that seems to have a life of its own.
From the collection of the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., the authors of An Illustrated Life of Jesus, Richard I. Abrams and Warner A. Hutchinson (Abingdon; 159 pages; $35), have selected 94 works to fashion an elaborate and appropriately timed birthday card. From the Annunciation to the Ascension, works by Botticelli, Dürer, El Greco, Rembrandt and dozens of lesser-known artists and craftsmen re-create the greatest story ever told and seen. Piety, passion and drama are conveyed in traditional mediums and styles. Jan van Eyck's Gabriel is a resplendent messenger in jeweled robe and peacock-colored wings. Salvador Dali's Sacrament of the Last Supper is dominated by a clean-shaven, translucent Jesus addressing his bowed Apostles under what appears to be a geodesic dome. Each illustration is accompanied by a descriptive text block. The Gospel narratives are condensed in clear, simple, documentary prose.
For a number of years after World War II, Photographer David Douglas Duncan explored the Middle East. He lived in Cairo and Istanbul, Jerusalem and Tehran. He took his cameras among the Berbers of the High Atlas Mountains of northern Morocco. He joined the tribal migration of the Qashqai nomads across southern Iran. He wandered through the world of Islam as far as Malaya and Indonesia. His fascination with that realm enlivens The World of Allah (Houghton Mifflin; 280 pages; $35). From the film shot in his travels, Duncan has assembled a Pavlova of the highly photogenic landscapes and people of Islam. It is a warm and sympathetic vision of the family of man, Muslim branch. In the past, Duncan's versatile lens has memorably captured war, American presidential politics and Pablo Picasso. The gaze he directs at Islam is, as always, lucid and superbly dramatic.