How we cite our quotes: (Page.Paragraph)
Quote #7
'That is Hopper's white sunlight. One day you will understand the sunlight in Monet and Van Gogh and Cézanne.' (252.1)
Jacob Kahn says this to Asher as they're hanging out in Provincetown and looking at some sunlight on the beach. Asher is slowly learning how to see things as an artist sees them, which is very different from how a scientist, anthropologist or apparently a religious Jew sees them.
Quote #8
The only honest way to paint today was either to represent objects that were recognizable, and at the same time integral to the two-dimensional nature of the canvas, or to do away with objects entirely and create paintings of color and texture and form, paintings that translates the volumes and voids in nature into fields of color, paintings in which the solids were flattened and the voids were filled and the planes were organized into what Hans Hofmann called 'complexes.' (253.3)
Breaking down how Abstract Expressionism works, Asher absorbs a lesson from Jacob Kahn on how the strange shapes in a piece of artwork can actually translate to real things found in the world. This is a good example of an artist's imagination interpreting reality in a powerful and unusual way, but it still doesn't explain that one Missy Elliott video.
Quote #9
I heard my mother and father. There was a quarrel. A man with a beard led me gently into a silver bird and sat with me through clouds. (281.3)
When Asher visits his mother and father in Vienna, he gets sick and hallucinates that God is guiding him through heaven. This fever-dream is also a nod to how potent his imagination is and how it could possibly land him in hot water when used to arrange oils on canvas.