In chapter thirteen of My Name is Asher Lev, Asher visits Europe to see all the art of the "other world." It is his first trip of living away from home, and he uses it to get a better insight on how the great artist’s portray their work. By renting an apartment and creating a studio, he sets himself up to paint in this world away from his world, hoping he will interpret new ideas. It leads him however to incorporate all the pain he and his family have ever felt, to the point where he has betrayed his religion at all costs.
What raises my curiosity in this chapter is that for the majority of the time, Asher did not paint. In his room he kept many canvases, but they stayed bare for long periods of time. When he was home he would draw and paint at every chance he got, everywhere he went. I did not understand why this would all of a sudden stop now. He is faced with amazing new scenery and propositions, and yet can not create one more drawing. I was even afraid at one point that this was the end of Asher’s painting, that his artistic imagination had run out.
It instead seemed to be a time where Asher was contemplating all the isolation he had ever felt, and all the anguish he had witnessed. I can not imagine the anguish Asher was living for him to produce such a profound painting in the end. All his emotions had bottled up over the course of the year he stayed in Europe and resulted in this one, breathtaking painting of the crucifixion of his mother. To go against all the religion he had been taught, all the things he knew his parents lived by, for the feeling he wanted to express left me in amazement. The meaning captured by that one painting leaves the reader contemplating how his art could have brought him to this. Apparently, Asher was not capable of balancing his religion and himself as an artist, whether that be good or bad. I am wondering now if the hurt he will cause because of this piece will surpass the hurt he captured in the painting. Then, he will truly have something to paint.
This chapter was a chapter of extremes, as Asher took the extreme to exert a painting more magnificent than ever, yet more consequential than he perhaps realized. I am eager to find out how his family will react to "his gift" expressed in this manner.