Blue Arabesque: A Search for the Sublime - Softcover

Hampl, Professor Of English Patricia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0156033119 ISBN 13: 9780156033114

Publisher: Mariner Books, 2007

Synopsis

Blue Arabesque Hampl explores the allure of a painting by Matisse, featuring a lounging woman immersed in leisure, so at odds with the rush of the modern era. Returning always to his portraits of languid women, she discovers they were not decorative indulgences but something much more. Full description

About this title

Review:

PRAISE FOR PATRICIA HAMPL

"Patricia Hampl is passionate about the demands of memory . . . Hampl's voice is learned yet intimate, a gift of herself to the reader."--Maureen Howard, author of The Silver Screen

"Patricia Hampl writes in the service of life in the very largest sense - writing that 'makes a path' from reality to the soul."--Marie Howe, author of What the Living Do

From the Back Cover:

A Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year
A Los Angeles Times Favorite Nonfiction of the Year
A Minneapolis Star Tribune Best Minnesota Book of the Year
Just out of college, Patricia Hampl was mesmerized by a Matisse painting in the Art Institute of Chicago: an aloof woman gazing at goldfish in a bowl, a Moroccan screen behind her. In Blue Arabesque, Hampl explores the allure of this lounging woman, immersed in leisure, so at odds with the rush of the modern era. Hampl s meditation takes us to the Cote d Azur and to North Africa, from cloister to harem, pondering figures as diverse as Eugene Delacroix, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Katherine Mansfield.Returning always to Matisse s portraits of languid women, she discovers they were not decorative indulgences but something much more.
Blue Arabesque isn't a memoir so much as it is a paean to the act of seeing, celebrating our capacity to be transformed by the truths art holds, recognizing them as holy. The New York Times Book Review

Lush, intelligent. Chicago Tribune
PATRICIA HAMPL is the author of four memoirs--A Romantic Education, Virgin Time, I Could Tell You Stories, and The Florist's Daughter--and two collections of poetry. She has received a MacArthur Fellowship, among many other awards. She lives in St. Paul and is Regents Professor at the University of Minnesota.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0156033119
• ISBN 13: 9780156033114
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224