Really? I got the impression that he was in his late teens.

Connie, he's at least 20 by then. He was born in 1943, and after a quick skim I think the Brooklyn Crucifixions were displayed about 3 to 4 years after Jacob Kahn finished campaigning for Kennedy.

If he could orally convey it, he wouldn't have the urgency to paint. (not an argument I was trying to bring you to, just working it out for myself). They were his two great works- I don't know how he could have communicated it. He could've said "Hey guys, there's a crucifixion." But that only tells them he's done something they don't approve of- from that description they can't even begin to think why.

It's funny but as I was explaining how he could have told them something I started to understand that he felt his only means of communication was through his art. And it's not like they wouldn't have seen his paintings on the covers of Time, Newsweek and the local papers. So the same end result would have occurred. But he could have tipped them off not to attend the show and been humiliated in front of all those people. That much would not have been hard to do.

I just checked though the book. He graduates college, then goes to Europe that summer. He's there for at least a year, maybe two, and the paintings are displayed that winter, so he'd be 23 or 24. Also, I'd guess it as 1967 or 1968 because of the way his parents were talking about what was going on at colleges.

But he could have tipped them off not to attend the show and been humiliated in front of all those people.

That would still have required him to confront the issue, and they would have asked "why?", and he'd have to admit he'd consciously betrayed, in a way, everything he was raised to be. Yes, it was cowardly, but it fits. Didn't he try to get some paints so he could tone down the crucifixions?

He asked Anna to let him.

That would still have required him to confront the issue, and they would have asked "why?", and he'd have to admit he'd consciously betrayed, in a way, everything he was raised to be. Yes, it was cowardly, but it fits. Didn't he try to get some paints so he could tone down the crucifixions?

See I agree that he thought he couldn't tell them. But something really bugged me about him not even tipping them off, or telling someone (his uncle, Yudi Krimsky?) to tell them not to go. I think Heather's on the nose - he wanted them to see it firsthand. So, in my opinion, it was less his inability to tell them not to come, and more his childish and selfish desire for them to see his work firsthand and maybe understand him a little, regardless of its possible humiliating effect on them. It was his needs over his parents'. That's what irks me. But I think I understand it a little better now.

Even if he felt the only way he could communicate this vision was through the paintings, he could have shown them to his parents privately. I just thought that scene, with everyone at the opening going "there they are," was unnecessarily cruel.

Even if he felt the only way he could communicate this vision was through the paintings, he could have shown them to his parents privately.

I thought of that, but they were already scooped up and hung, and the show was Saturday night. He really had no chance to take them to a private showing.

unnecessarily cruel

Cruel, yes, but I don't think unnecessarily. Bloody uncomfortable and painful, but maybe necessary on some level. Maybe it was conscious on some level for Asher. The confrontation occurred on his ground, where he was surrounded by people who supported him when the primary conflict of his life was brought to a head. It may have been the only way he could see of having a chance of surviving.

Well, he had first wanted his parents to come on the Saturday night before the big opening, but then they had the meeting, and had to go Sunday. I also think that he didn't think so much of its effect on them, personally. He knew that they would be upset because it was crucifixions, but he's been putting so much of himself on display at the exhibits that I don't think he realized how much it would upset his parents, not that their son was painting crucifixions, but that he was painting them in a crucifixion. From Asher's thoughts:

It isn't the sitra achra, Papa. It's your son. There was no other way, no other aesthetic mold -- He would not begin to understand. He would hear the word "cricifixion." He would see the crucifix looming monstrously before his eyes.

I don't think Asher really even considered the "Hey, it's them!" aspect of it. I think that's one of the things that happened a lot throughout this book -- Asher really understands people only as they relate to him. He sees the pain that he and his father are causing his mother, but he really says very little about her own ambitions. He understands his father's need to travel only as a corrollary of his own need to paint. He knows that his parents will object to his painting crucifixions, but doesn't really comprehend that they'll object more to being the subjects of those paintings, because he is always, in some way, the subject of his paintings.

What Hil said