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Blue Arabesque
A Search for the Sublime
Patricia Hampl
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9780151015061 Hardcover
0151015066
$22.00
224pages
Available
Trim Size:
5 x 7 1/4
Copyright Year:
2006
Territory:
World English
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Read an Excerpt
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Synopsis |
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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.
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Praise |
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"[A] sinuous meditation on artistic inspiration..." (A-, EW Pick)
Entertainment Weekly,10/19/2006
"Ultimately, 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...Patricia Hampl's determination to occupy the space between the eye and its object and her success at articulating the mysterious transactions therein grants her authority among writers like Berger and Sontag, who not only sit and stare but see. Read 'Blue Arabesque' and you too might mistake --or exchange -- art museums for churches."
New York Times Book Review,10/29/2006
"Blue Arabesque is part of a rich but underappreciated sub-genre of nonfiction, a hybrid of art crticism and memoir...Here Patricia Hampl is true to her belief that '[a] painting must depict the act of seeing, not the object seen.' She illuminates and distinguishes among the many ways we apprehend our surroundings -- the gaze and the glimpse, seeing and sightseeing, the insolent leer and the clear-eyed observation. In so doing, she exercises precisely the visual discernment from which she once felt hopelessly alienated."
LA Times,10/22/2006
"Much is left for the reader to consider and pursue after reading this joy-filled and intriguing book."
America,11/6/2006
"In her early poem Woman Before an Aquarium - yes, it's about the painting - Hampl writes: 'A mature woman always wants to be a mermaid.' Hampl achieves just such a metamorphosis here, swimming gracefully through the tricky currents of art and history, biography and memoir. Singing yet another beguiling verse of her career's lovely song."
The Plain Dealer,11/5/2006
"Hampl's memoirs of discovery are exhilarating...Hampl does with words what Matisse does with line and color."
Booklist (starred),9/15/2006
"An artful, affecting memoir whose lessons arrive in a delicious whisper." (starred)
Kirkus,8/15/2006
"It is Hampl's insight and humor that make this gem worth consideration."
Library Journal,9/1/2006
"Whether discussing the journals of Katherine Mansfield or the harems of the 18th century, Hampl proves to be an authoritative and beguiling guide to the joys of leisure and the intellect."
Publishers Weekly (starred),9/11/2006
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Biography |
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PATRICIA HAMPL is the author of three memoirs: A Romantic Education, Virgin Time, and I Could Tell You Stories; and two collections of poetry. She has received a MacArthur Fellowship, among many other awards. She lives in St. Paul, where she is Regents Professor at the University of Minnesota.
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General Subjects |
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Biography & Autobiography- Personal Memoirs
Art- Criticism
Art- European
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Academic Disciplines & Course Studies |
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Interdisciplinary Studies- Women's Studies
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Rights Details |
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| Rights Holders: |
Serial/Audio/UK: Harcourt
Performance/Translation: Marly Rusoff Associates
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Rights Information |
Harcourt Books
An imprint ofHarcourt Trade Publishers
A
Harcourt Education Company
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