In the book My Name Is Asher Lev, Asher is an extremely talented artist, but he is also a Hasidic Jew. Because of his religion, he is limited to what kind of art he can do that the Hasidic Jews will accept. Asher finds it hard to conform to these rules because they are stunting his growth as an artist. He paints two masterpieces, each containing a crucifixion, even though he knows that they will greatly insult the people of his religion. He painted both crucifixion paintings in a small studio in Paris.
Brooklyn Crucifixion I was the first of the two crucifixion paintings that Asher painted. He did not want to paint it because he knew that it would make him disloyal to the Ladover, but he felt like he had to paint it. "And it was then that it came, though I think it had been coming for a long time and I had been choking it and hoping it would die. But it does not die. It kills you first. I knew there would be no other way to do it. No one says you have to paint ultimate anguish and torment. But if you are driven to paint it, you have no other way." (Potok, 310). Asher drew the preliminary drawings for the painting, but then he had to stop because it was the Sabbath. When he continued after the Sabbath, it was a warm, sunny spring day in Paris. From his window in the apartment studio, he could see lush chestnut trees along the boulevard. This pleasant setting contrasts with the violent painting that Asher is about to begin. First, he laid the shapes out on the canvas using charcoal, then he started to paint. He painted the vertical wooden panel of the window in his family's apartment, and the horizontal Venetian blind near the top of the window, but slightly lower than the top of the vertical line. These two lines form an awkward cross, which is the base form of the crucifix. Then he paints his fragile mother, not on the crucifix but standing below it, her slender hands resting gently on the window ledge. Her eyes line up perfectly with the vertical panel, and he accents the eyes so that they are very sharp and piercing. Then, outside the window, he painted lots of telephone poles, some close and some far away. The vertical poles and the cross-pieces at the top of telephone poles each formed a crucifix. After doing this, Asher takes a break from painting.
The next day, Asher continues work on the painting. Today, he works more on the geometry of the painting. It is likely that he uses linear perspective to create the image. Linear perspective is a geometric method of positioning shapes and forms on a canvas or paper. It gives a painting form and order. Then when irregular shapes are added to a painting with linear perspective, the unbalanced shapes stand out against the geometric order of the other lines.
Next, Asher added color to the painting. He used bright colors such as mixtures of reds, oranges, and yellows. Then he used shades of vivid blues and blue-greens to compliment the bright colors. He spent a lot of time on his mother's face, especially her eyes. Then, he was finished.
"I felt vaguely unclean, as if I had betrayed a friend…Then I looked a very long time at the painting and knew it was incomplete…The telephone poles were only distant reminders of the brutal realty of a crucifix. The painting did not say all I wanted it to say; it did not reflect fully the anguish and torment I had wanted to put into it. Within myself, a warning voice spoke soundlessly of a fraud." (311, Potok). Asher's art teacher, Jacob Kahn, warned Asher never to leave a painting incomplete, because it gives a false impression of the feelings that the artist wanted to get across in the painting. Because of this, Asher knew that it was necessary for him to paint it again.