“Every great artist is a man who has freed himself from his family, his nation, his race” (203). Asher remembers this quote from The Art Spirit, the book his mother brought to him from her professor. Asher also learns from the book that he must be careful of the influence of his community “for large bodies tend toward the leveling of individuality to a common consent” (202). Asher struggles with the need to stay within the parameters of his family and religious values, but in the end, he simply must express himself. From the beginning of the book, we know that Asher’s art and his strong sense of self will prevail. He reminds us several times, “I was introduced over and over again as Asher Lev, son of Reb Aryeh Lev” (319). Throughout Asher’s life he is known as the son of Aryeh Lev, but as early as six years of age, he asserts his independence. When his uncle refers to him as “a regular Chagall,” Asher turns and says, “No. My name is Asher Lev” (31). From his refusal to stop drawing to his refusal to move to Vienna, Asher consistently stands as an individual, but he is not without sensitivity. His compassion for his mother’s pain is as constant as his rebellion against his father’s lack of understanding. Nearly every scene of the book builds toward the climactic Crucifixion paintings, yet nothing prepares us for the painting or its unveiling.
Asher’s focus on his mother as his favorite subject in art begins at a tender young age when he draws her rowing a boat or spending time with him. Rivkeh wants him to draw a pretty world for her, but her depression does not create a pretty world for Asher. He begins to express what he really sees when he uses cigarette ashes as charcoal to capture the shadows in her depressed face. Later when he is faced with the loss of his mother as she prepares to move to Europe, Jacob Kahn tells him, “Your feelings about your mother are producing terrible art” (240). His art turns malevolent as he emulates Michelangelo’s Last Judgment with the face of the bully from school, but his ability to express his feelings deepens. Once he has dealt with that anger, his preoccupation returns to mother and child paintings. It is not surprising that his masterpieces end up including his mother and her anguish as the focal point, but the brilliance of the book is the mental gasp that is caused by visual image of his mother with her arms outstretched along the window blinds in a crucifixion pose.
Even though we are told on the first page of the book that Asher Lev painted the Brooklyn Crucifixion, nothing prepared me for the scene when he finally expresses the anguish that he sees in his mother. Asher’s fixation on the paintings of the Crucifixion of Jesus also foreshadow his masterpieces, but at the time when he was emulating crucifixion paintings from the museum, he was also relating to the darkness and cold that Yudel Krinsky must have felt in Siberia. Asher lived a cold and lonely childhood while his parents sacrificed everything in order to follow their passion of saving innocent Jews and building yeshivas. Asher followed their example and sacrificed everything for his passion. It is ironic that Christians see the Crucifixion of Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice, which gives the symbol an even greater impact even though or perhaps because it is written from a Jewish perspective. Wow. Gasp. The painting screams, “I cannot be Aryeh Lev’s son. My name is Asher Lev.” I think this book is a work of art!
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6 comments:
Kelly, I love your idea that the book is a work of art; it is! Somewhere in some background I read a critic quoted Potok's saying that Asher's story was a metaphor for the struggle to write. The dialogue you give to the painting is perfect, but I think Ahser's following of his passion shows that he is indeed Aryeh and Rivkeh's son; he just has had to find his own way to be so.
What you've written definitely points out to me why the first part of the book was so very important! The growing years explained why and how Asher could and would become who he did. The early assertion of self (perhaps over community) and the early pictures drawn of his mother. Both of these are essential to the second part as we see what he does with everything he learned and experienced previously. Thank you for your insight.
I also felt so much when his mother viewed the paintings. Your analysis of Asher is wonderful. He is such a conflicted person. The conflicts keep coming from his father to his religion to his truth in art to his need to paint no matter what the cost. I think the cost was big for Asher. Just as his father is starting to appriciate his work, the final paintings drive a wedge that cannot be filled. I agree that this book is a work of art, the written form of course. The viewing of his own art on the walls and his mother's view were very intense moments for me.
I love the way you describe the final moments and the book as a whole. While it is obvious to realize the importance of Asher's relationship with his mother, you have done an excellent job really showing how the story builds up to the final moment based on all of the culminated events between Asher and his mother that existed for me on more of a subconscious level.
I loved your writing! I hadn't thought of Asher's focus of his mother beginning when he drew her. I just assumed she was the only one for a 4 year old to draw. I like what you had to say about Asher and his mother.
Kelly, Wonderful analysis of the story, particularly the relationship between Asher and Rivkeh.
I had the same response at the end of the novel ("Wow. Gasp."); my heart was pounding.
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