Asher Lev is a Jewish boy raised in Brooklyn with a phenomenal artistic gift. The novel follows his pursuit of painting despite the compromises it makes to relationships in his family and Jewish community. Asher realises at an early age the world is not a "pretty" place through witnessing his mother's illness and depression, following his uncle's death. He strives to paint his world and the people within it truthfully, after realising the pretty pictures he makes are lies. He becomes apprenticed to Jacob Kahn, an already successful artist, who verses him in artistic tradition and enables him to channel and control his creativity. On graduating from Yeshiva, he travels to Europe where he sees a lot of the art he has studied. In Paris, Asher executes some pivotal crucifixion paintings, putting himself and his parents into the scene: His mother crucified on the crossed frame of the living room window she so often waited by for her husband and son to return; her face agonised with all the pain she experienced. The paintings are hung in his show in New York and extremely well-received by critics and the public. Asher becomes known throughout New York as a prodigy painter.
The book ends on a melancholy note. Asher is forced to leave Brooklyn (after a conversation with the Rebbe) to find another Jewish community after his art has seriously offended his family and friends. He concludes that truthful art can often inflict pain but that he must make great art in spite of the pain it causes. He wrestles with this power to "create and destroy"; to "bring pleasure and pain"; to "amuse and horrify" with the "demonic and divine" creative ability that he has. Yet creation itself was demonic and divine at the outset he argues: "the solitary vision that put new eyes into gouged-out sockets was demonic and divine". At the conclusion of the book, Asher experiences a moral inner-conflict and seeks God's (the Master of the Universe's) answer. Direction is given. He flies to Paris the next day.
"Asher Lev paints good pictures and hurts people he loves. Then be a great painter, Asher Lev; that will be the only justification for all the pain you will cause. But as a great painter I will cause pain again if I must. Then become a great painter. But I will cause pain again. Then become a still greater painter. Master of the Universe, will I live this way all the rest of my life? Yes, came the whisper from the branches of the trees. Now journey with me, my Asher. Paint the anguish of all the world. Let people see the pain. But create your own molds and your own play of forms for the pain. We must give a balance to the universe."
The book has caused me to think of accountability to God for the gifts we are given and how we ought to pursue them for His glory, even if that does mean making compromises in other areas of our lives. I am also considering my natural leanings, impulses, instincts and passions as where God is calling me to be. I am often drawn to melancholic subject matter in my paintings, perhaps because it is the most honest way to paint a reflection of the world around us. I recognise so much heart-ache and brokenness in this world and it conjures deeper sentiments than those that are happy (and often superficial and fleeting). I thought for a while that this could be indulging in melancholia, yet I've realised it's more about truth. I feel I must express those sentiments, out of respect to myself, to God and to viewers. Perhaps pretty paintings are evasion of truth, as Chaim Potok suggests. We make evasions in our daily lives; avoid the facts because they're too painful to deal with. Yet art can give balance to the universe Potok says. There are some things that can't be evaded because they are too important. They need to be seen, revealed, uncovered. We can't live our lives in ignorance. We must live them in truth. Even if that's painful. I have learnt a lesson of integrity: To be true to oneself, before God. In order to do this I must acknowledge all that has been entrusted to me with and strive to live in truth, gaining interest on what was given to me for God's gain.
