The Beach House In My Name Is Asher Lev

When Asher is a teenager, he goes to Cape Cod for the summer with his teacher, Jacob Kahn. They stay at a beach house and spend most of their time painting the ocean and the beach. The house they stayed in was located right on the edge of the sand dunes. When Asher looked out the window of his room, he could see the Atlantic Ocean. The sun sparkled and shimmered on the water, reflecting intense white light. The surf was a rich silver-white. In the early morning, the mist lowered the intensity of the sun's rays, but the powerful sun quickly evaporated the mist by midmorning. When Asher walked on the beach in the morning, the sand dunes felt cold against his bare feet, from the night moisture. At this time, Asher felt very close to God. "I stood on the beach and felt wind-blown sprays of ocean on my face, and I prayed." (Potok, 240).

At noon on the beach, the sun's intensity was at it's maximum, and the rays on the sand were golden. A few hundred yards up the beach, the white Cape Cod houses were radiant with sunlight, but the brush that grew around them detracted from the beauty of the glowing houses. Pure white seagulls glided over the sand and the water, their wings shining like sunlight on fallen snow. The cries of the seagulls and the roar of the ocean could be heard. Asher could feel the salty wind all around him, embracing him. He liked to stare out into the vast ocean, across the waves to the distant line where the water met the sky.

Asher created many beautiful painting of the beach. He pained the rolling sand dunes in front of the massive ocean. He painted the seagulls flying through the vibrant blue sky, the sun shining on their outreached wings. The paintings that Asher makes at the beach house and the things he learns about art are very important to his future career as an artist. Jacob Kahn teaches Asher to make sure to never leave a painting incomplete, even if the artist is the only one who will know that the piece is lacking. Artists who paint incomplete paintings and ignore their artistic instincts are known as whores, and are highly disrespected in the world of art. It is because of these words that later in his life, Asher feels such a need to paint the crucifixion paintings. He would prefer to paint the crucifixions and insult the Ladover rather than be a whore.

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