Faith and Art--From My Name Is Asher Lev

[Heather Goodman]

I could read My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok about 30 times back to back and still glean wisdom from it with each reading. It talks about one artist's struggle to be honest in his art and honest to his faith. It deals with David's question about pursuing art when there's so much pain around us. It deals with the question of creating beauty when there's so much evil around us. I think this should be required reading for every artist, no matter what their beliefs because at some point, the question will come up, what if it seems like being true to art is different from being true to my beliefs (or to the community who holds these beliefs).
With that in mind, I'm pulling some quotes for discussion. You don't have to have read the book to participate in the discussion. And there are no spoilers in the quotes. I want to hear your thoughts on pursuing truth and beauty and faith and art.
"What do You want from me? I thought...If You didn't want me to use the gift, why did You give it to me? Or did it come to me from the Other Side? It was horrifying to think my gift may have been given to me by the source of evil and ugliness. How can evil and ugliness make a gift of beauty?" (p. 119)
(Background: Asher's father is an important man in their Jewish community. He works to free Jews from the oppressive Soviet regime under Stalin. The beginning of this quote comes from the spiritual leader at Asher's school.) "'Asherel, my child, understand what I am saying to you. We all know you have a gift. We all know such a gift cannot always be controlled...But one does not always give in to a gift. One does with a life what is precious not only to one's own self but to one's own people. That is the way our people live, Asherel...The gift causes you to think only of yourself and your own feelings. No one would care if these were normal times, Asherel. We do not interpret the second commandment the way others do. But these are not normal times.' When have times ever been normal for Jews? I thought. What is he telling me? To stifle the gift? Does he also believe the gift is from the Other Side? Then it should be stifled even in normal times; what does it have to do with the Jewish people? And if it's not from the Other Side, if it's from the Ribbono Shel Olom [the Master of the Universe, aka God] why is it less important than what Papa is doing?" (p. 133)
Then Asher meets a great Jewish artist (although no longer a practicing Jew), Jacob Kahn, who teaches and mentors him. When the meet, Jacob tells him, "I will teach you how to handle rage in color and line. You draw with too much love. No man can love as much as you and survive as an artist. You will become sentimental. And sentimentalism is death to art" (p. 215)
Later in the conversation...
"'Tell me what you think that responsibility is,' [Jacob] said.
I was quiet. I did not know what to say.
'Do you feel you are responsible to anyone? To anything?'
'To my people,' I said hesitantly.
'What people?'
'To Jews.'
'To Jews,' he echoed. 'Why do you think you are responsible to Jews?'
'All Jews are responsible one for the other,' I said, quoting the statement from the Talmud my father had years ago quoted to me.
'As an artist you are responsible to Jews?' He seemed angry. 'Listen to me, Asher Lev. As an artist you are responsible to no one and to nothing, except to yourself and to the truth as you see it. Do you understand? An artist is responsible to his art. Anything else is propaganda. Anything else is what the Communists in Russia call art. I will teach you responsibility to art'" (p. 217-18).
The next one comes after Jacob's been taking him to see crucifixions (of course a no-no to Jews).
"I told him the next day that I did not think I wanted to see any more crucifixions. He became angry.
'Asher Lev, you want to go off into a corner somewhere and paint little rabbis in long beards? Then go away and do not waste my time. Go paint your little rabbis. No one will pay attention to you. I am not telling you to paint crucifixions. I am telling you that you must understand what a crucifixion is in art if you want to be a great artist. The crucifixion must be available to you as a form. Do you understand? No, I see you do not understand. In any case, we will see more crucifixions and more resurrections and more nativities and more Greek and Roman gods and more scenes of war and love--because that is the world of art, Asher Lev. And we will see more naked women, and you will learn the reason for the differences between the naked women of Titian and those of Rubens. This is the world you want to make sacred. You had better learn it well first before you begin'" (pp. 227-28).
This next quote comes from a section of his father trying to understand what he's doing, especially as Asher's art continues to go outside the Jewish tradition.
"[Asher] 'I don't want to sit in a room painting for myself. I want to communicate what I do. And I want critics to know I can do it.'
[His father] 'Even if it offends people?'
'Everything offends someone.'
'Even if it offends your father?'
I did not respond.
'There is such a matter as respect for your father. That's also a tradition'" (p. 304).
This is getting long, but there's so much good stuff to think about. Last one:
"Yes, I could have decided not to do it. Who would have known? Would it have made a difference to anyone in the world that I had felt a sense of incompleteness about a painting? Who would have cared about my silent cry of fraud? Only Jacob Kahn, and perhaps one or two others, might have sensed its incompleteness. And even they could never have known how incomplete it truly was, for by itself it was a good painting. Only I would have known.
But it would have made me a whore to leave it incomplete. It would have made it easier to leave future work incomplete" (p. 328).
So have at it. I'll chime in later.

[Sarah Winfrey]

Ok, so I'm totally intimidated by this discussion, but jumping in anyway ;)

The "simple" answer for me is the pursuing beauty is pursuing God. Too bad it never ends up simply!!

Seriously, though, I think that the problem that comes up can often be in the faith community, not the artist. So much of what we determine as beautiful really comes from history, either our own or our culture's, and not from God. When a faith community embraces a definition of beauty that is from another source, it's hard for the lone artist to convince them that they're wrong. There's so many of them, and sometimes artists are fragile enough that the noise alone is intimidating, even when the words being said are wrong.

I guess this is what I see in Asher Lev. Without giving a spoiler, I think that what he creates follows God in a place where his community does not. What he creates is more true than what his community would have him create.

I'm well aware that there are artists out there who think they're pursuing beauty but who are really pursuing something else, but the other situation seems to produce problems like what we see in Asher Lev.

[Heather Goodman]

I'm glad you took a risk. Good thoughts.
I agree about truth and beauty approaching each other, becoming one. The most beautiful thing is the crucifixion and resurrection (both parts are needed for true beauty, though).
I think for me it was a struggle with the community--how do I balance being accountable to the community and to my art? When am I allowed to be "selfish" in the name of art and creation. (I was at a conference in April--the Transforming Culture symposium of artists and pastors--and one of the guys told pastors not to worry if an artist isn't there every Sunday, that artists sometimes keep weird hours. While my hours aren't as strange as they once were when I was in music--although when I can't sleep at night because of prose or a story running through my head, I've given myself permission to get up and write and sleep in late the next morning--this was a relief. I wanted to stand up and clap and say thank you for taking that burden off me!) I felt for Asher and the pressure, but sometimes he got on my nerves. He was really very selfish. Am I allowed to go that far? Who is my primary responsibility--the Church or creating beauty?
The other thing was being willing to offend. I don't mean to purposefully offend. That's different. But recognizing that someone's going to be offended in the community (whether because of their limited view or because of mine or because of something different entirely), I need to be willing to do that for the sake of art and beauty and truth. The offended person may be outside the Church or inside.
But pursuing art, while often individualistic, needs to be communal, too (as we saw with Jacob and the artists he brought in). I need to rely on community in my spiritual formation and be responsible to them, don't I?
Ah, this is getting too long.
Again.