Chapter Three of My Name is Asher Lev, introduces a significant change for little Asher, one which will almos surely affect his future artist career. Where chapters one and two introduce Asher and inform the reader of Asher’s dismal situation, Chapter Three begins to set up the rise of Asher into the art world.
Several parts of Chapter Three indicate that Asher is becoming more aware of the aspects of his medium and also he is beginning to develop the creative but also dark mindset that might lead him to push the orthodox standards of art (Asher dislikes the orthodox ways of the hasidic Judaism, just as he will dislike the orthodox ways of the art community). The first of these learning steps is when Asher develops the ability to tell paper grades by merely holding them in his hand. This signifies that he is prone to the ways of an artist and aslo it proves that Asher takes an intense enjoyment of learning about art. Though Asher cannot stand to learn arithmetic (“I don’t like arithmetic”), he takes careful study from Reb Yudel Krinsky about the grades of paper.
The second sign of Asher’s art maturation also is a sign of his mental condition. In the dream, Asher sees Yudel Krinsky who informs him ofcertain standard operating procedures of the artist, such as which medium is to be used on which paper. This is informs the maturing Asher of the means to proceed in his art career. In the second part of the dream which is actually the first, Asher sees his Uncle Yitzchok, who informs him that he wants to buy more drawings. This represents to Asher that there will be an audience for his work. both of these together give Asher a Field of Dreams image (“if you build it, they will come”; if you draw it, they will buy). That is the superfictial interpretation of the intet of Asher’s dream. The deeper, more psychological interpretation of the dream indicates that Asher has an prophetic ability, as the converstion in his dream with Yudel Krinsky was almost duplicated in real life. The fact that he has this ability indicates that Asher’s mind is capable of varied unconventional thought processes. These processes are what will lead him to the modernist or cubist forms of art, thus causing him to be a inovator in his field, and drawing all of the criticism that he says he does at the beginning of the book.
The final sign of Asher’s reintroduction to art, as well as the redevelopment of his mind, is that by the end of Chpater Three, Asher has drawn again. The process by which this occus leads the reader to believe that Asher has been repressing the urge to draw. During his class, he just impulsively begins drawing lines that develop into a picture. The picture is of the dead Stalin, lying in his coffin. This leads one to believe that Asher is developing a dark, pessimistic outlook on life, where he is always able to see the ugly or the bad (and from that see the reality of life). This also is a step that will lead to Asher creating in the modernist of cubist fashion.