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Blue Arabesque

A Search for the Sublime

By: Patricia Hampl

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Paperback | 1 October 2007

At a Glance

Paperback
224 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
20.32 x 13.34 x 1.42

Paperback

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Just out of college, Patricia Hampl was mesmerized by a Matisse painting she saw in the Art Institute of Chicago: an aloof woman gazing at goldfish in a bowl, a mysterious Moroccan screen behind her. This woman seemed a welcome secular version of the nuns of Hampl’s girlhood, free and untouchable, a poster girl for twentieth-century feminism. In Blue Arabesque, Hampl explores the allure of that woman, immersed in leisure, so at odds with the increasing rush of the modern era. Her tantalizing meditation takes us to the Cote d’Azur and North Africa, from cloister to harem, pondering figures as diverse as Eugène Delacroix, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Katherine Mansfield. Returning always to Matisse and his obsessive portraits of languid women, Hampl discovers they were not decorative indulgences but surprising acts of integrity.

Moving with the life force that Matisse sought in his work, Blue Arabesque is a dazzling tour de force.

Industry Reviews

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

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You Can Find This Book In

Non-Fiction Biographies & True Stories Biographies Literary Biographies Arts & Entertainment General Issues in Art History of Art & Design Styles Art Forms Non-Graphic Art Forms Performance Art Art Treatments & Subjects Individual Artists, Art Monographs

A excerpt from what we call Blue Arabesque
appeared in Granta Fall 2004 and was later was selected and reprinted for Best American
Spiritual Writing 2005 Houghton Mifflin
The American Scholar a version of the Katherine
Mansfield chapter under title of ""Relics of
Summer 2001. That version also appeared in Rereading edited
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Blue Arabesque

A Search for the Sublime

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

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