Blue Arabesque: A Search for the Sublime [Paperback]

Patricia Hampl (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2007

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. Moving with the life force that Matisse sought in his work, Blue Arabesque is Hampl’s dazzling and critically acclaimed tour de force.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In this discursive and absorbing interdisciplinary work, Hampl (A Romantic Education) explores the artistic life from an impressively diverse number of perspectives. Her starting place is Matisse's Woman Before an Aquarium, a painting that, to her, represents the languid, inward-looking life of the mind that leads to great art. From this image, Hampl sets off on an intellectual journey that leads her from Matisse's odalisques to those of Delacroix and Ingres, then outward to the larger notions of orientalism and exoticism that pervade such works. The pleasure of reading this book comes from following Hampl as she skips swiftly from one subject to another while maintaining a perfect consistency of tone and theme. In one particularly illuminating sequence, Hampl discusses the career of Jerome Hill, a documentary filmmaker from her hometown of St. Paul, Minn., who chronicled the minutiae of his life in his final film; the hometown connection allows Hampl to explore aspects of her own life as well. 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. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Hampl's memoirs of discovery are exhilarating. Writing of both earthly pilgrimages and the inner journeys they provoke, she brings a poet's love of language, fluency in patterns and modulations, and fascination with the life of the mind to unusual aesthetic, spiritual, and cultural inquiries. Her most sensuous, sinuous, and radiant book to date arcs from contemplation of a painting by Matisse. Woman before an Aquarium has served as icon and lodestar for Hampl ever since she was first "apprehended" by it in Chicago in 1972. Matisse's arresting image of a self-possessed woman gazing at goldfish in a fishbowl in a room with a blue Moroccan screen inspires Hampl to compose scintillating and spiraling reflections on containment, the nature of time, the significance of leisure, Matisse's love of fabric, European fantasies about harems, and a little-known filmmaker from Hampl's hometown, St. Paul, Minnesota. Entwining the gold gleaned from her inspired research with bright strands of autobiography and unforeseen turns of thought to create finely filigreed prose, Hampl does with words what Matisse does with line and color, that is, reaches to the essence of perception, "not simply what was seen, but how seeing was experienced." Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (October 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156033119
• ISBN-13: 978-0156033114
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,103,398 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Having a Matisse moment., December 21, 2006

By 

G. Merritt (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blue Arabesque: A Search for the Sublime (Hardcover)

Patricia Hampl is the author of three previous memoirs, A Romantic Education, Virgin Time: In Search of the Contemplative Life,I Could Tell You Stories: Sojourns in the Land of Memory. Her latest autobiographical narrative, BLUE ARABESQUE, describes her 1972 encounter with Henri Matisse's "Femme et poissons rouges" ("Woman Before an Aquarium") on her way to a lunch date in the Chicago Art Institute. The painting, which depicts an aloof woman gazing at goldfish, stopped Hampl in her tracks with its representation of the life she desired: a contemplative life in communion with artistic genius. (The scene is reminiscent of Susanna Kaysen's encounter with a Vermeer painting in GIRL, INTERRUPTED.) From this Proustian moment, Hampl's personal essay then sets forth on an ambitious interdisciplinary journey from Matisse's odalisques to the works of Delacroix, Ingres, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jerome Hill, and Katherine Mansfield, then into the world of the Cote d'Azur and North Africa, to the cloister and to the 18th century harems, revealing along the way that Hampl is an academic (a Professor at the University of Minnesota, to be exact) with an inquisitive intellect. Her Matisse moment opens the door to the sublime. Described by The New York Times Book Review as "a paean to the act of seeing, celebrating our capacity to be transformed by the truths art holds," BLUE ARABESQUE offers a fascinating glimpse into a mind attempting to integrate the aesthetic, spiritual, and cultural into one's own life.

G. Merritt

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Vivid imagery, February 19, 2007

By 

Armchair Interviews (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blue Arabesque: A Search for the Sublime (Hardcover)

Blue Arabesque by the inspired Patricia Hampl is as much a work of art as the paintings she describes. Her story begins in the spring of 1972 at the Chicago Art Institute. There she is held spellbound by a profound piece of artwork created by Henri Matisse. She describes her enchantment of his painting of a woman gazing into a fishbowl. The author's remembrance of this finding is much more detailed. Her imagery is that of a poet describing a chance encounter with an object whose beauty has to be seen full and in the flesh. She uses vivid mastery of words to keep the readers haunting interest.

Patricia introduces us to Henri Matisse and delights over his use of Moroccan and African influences in his artistry. She explores his use of young women who modeled for him and gives an interesting eye into the life of Henriette Darricarrere who posed from 1920 to 1927. The author also describes the limited though profound life of Jerome Hill whose documentary "Film Portrait" won the 1972 London Film Festival award shortly after his death from cancer in 1971.

In order to truly understand and appreciate the talents of this author, you must read the book. Her journeys are portraits in themselves. She tells of her travels, not like an author or a writer, but like a griot* whose stories are often woven with greatness and sheer excitement. I enjoyed my voyage with Patricia Hampl in her search for the sublime. I have only touched on a fraction of the stories this book encompasses. I urge all to allow this author to share her colorful and delightful experiences with you--a trip well taken.

(* gri*ot -- a member of a caste of professional oral historians in the Mali Empire)

Armchair Interviews says: Truly a "trip well taken."

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deserves a permanent place in my bookcase, November 19, 2007

By 

Helen Gallagher (Glenview, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blue Arabesque: A Search for the Sublime (Paperback)

Blue Arabesque is a memoir with an ethereal quality, as the author shares her experiences in understanding Matisse, his models, and the personal journey of being absorbed by a painting. How many of us take the time to follow and contemplate and sort out the mysteries of what intrigues us? Yet, the energy, passion, and art education packed into this delightful little book reveal even more...like what it means to the author to be traveling, contemplating, sorting out who we are ~ when we have the "leisure" of time. I had the pleasure of hearing the author speak and believe me, this is a very thoughtful book.

I'm sharing my thoughts, but won't share this beautiful book. It will have a permanent home on my shelves.

Helen Gallagher, Release Your Writing: Book Publishing, Your Way