Customer Reviews

Blue Arabesque: A Search for the Sublime

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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

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."

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

This slim volume was packed with imagery and reflections worth a reread. The author has a real gift in drawing from many sources - art, travel, family and spirituality - and creating a rich narrative. It compelled me to read another of her books.

I finished reading this book in late January; a quick read relatively speaking.

The author is enamored of words, and of light and color. Like A.S. Byatt, Patricia Hampl holds a special place for Matisse, and the places where he spent his sun-drenched life.

I've seen a photo of him in his bed in 1941, not long after his harrowing colostomy and all the attendant complications. His cat lies comfy atop the bed with him; he is bending over a sketch book.. about to apply a light brush to it. On the wall behind him are the Asian and African prints and patterns that increasingly inspired him as he grew older. There is a warm smile on his face. He is enjoying himself.

For the remaining 13 years of his life he remained an invalid, but his work continued to shine more and more brightly and clearly. It culminated in his chapel in Vence, where the author ends her pilgrimage, and the book.

Hampl succeeds in presenting us with the context: geographical, historical, and cultural, which enabled Matisse to pursue and fulfill his love of pattern and color. For that I give her much credit
and appreciation

Patricia Hampl's gift is clarity. Although her thoughts in Blue Arabesque may be "highbrow," they're never intimidating or boring. Her epigraph is Matisse's "I am made of all that I have seen." This is as true for her voice as the artist's life--her elegant sentences don't shun homespun words like "crummy," "wobbly," "get it." It makes for an exhilarating read, this confidence and abundance.

It felt true. I've had some of the same experiences: the scary Arab cleaning, the unpleasant encounter in the suq, languourous French meals, a visit to Matisse's luminous chapel, and I found myself saying, "Yes, exactly," to myself as I read.

My one discomfort was the cover--alluring, but untrue, such a bad thing for a publisher to foist on a writer.

Blue Arabesque is a very bad book on multiple counts. A partial list:

Cover art: Matisse's Woman Before an Aquarium (Femmes et poissons rouges) is the painting that prompts this "meditation," but the cover art is by another artist. Although the central focus of this book is Matisse, the book cover features the rear end of the model from the famous painting, Le Grande Odalisque, by Ingres.

Harmony: The book lacks cohesion. Disparate elements are forced into becoming neighbors with one another for no apparent reason.

Rigor: The author's assertions are put forth without evidence.

References: Nonexistent or skimpy in the extreme.

Value: 208 pages fairly large type on approx. 4 x 5 inch layout. (Perhaps I should list this as a "positive.")

It is a mystery to me why these meanderings were published in book format. They resemble the pages of a notebook or journal that have been ever-so-slightly modified and then put forth as some sort of unveiling. But it's all just too fuzzy to get any clear views.

Here is one example from page 161 - Hampl is writing about Katherine Mansfield: "But unlike Virginia Woolf or Sylvia Plath (the afflicted women writers my friends favored), Mansfield's tubercular lungs were bursting to live, live. My saint might die, but extinguish herself? Never." To which one can respond: Who can say? What if Mansfield's affliction had been clinical depression instead of tuberculosis?

From page 77, writing about Matisse: "His dream of beauty was in solidarity not with the idle rich but with the exhausted working poor. Only one who had seen the unforgiving circumstances of industrial labor could understand that the odalisque does not loll on her divan as an erotic opportunity but is even more deeply sensual, an image of pure leisure, that commodity most cruelly denied the poor of the earth." What is the evidence for these conclusions, and why does the author make them?

At another point the author and a friend have had a massage at a Turkish bath:

"...my body broken of its vertical, the arabesque of ease pounded into me." (pg. 147)
"Susan is a lolling rose nearby, a girlfriend talking .... The petals of her body open, blushing with color." (pg. 148)

What point is being made here? At least with respect to the art of Matisse, Ingres, and Delacroix, and the others who are inserted into the text, what has this massage to tell us?

After criticizing this "search for the sublime" so harshly, I feel I should offer an alternative that provides what Blue Arabesque lacks. One excellent choice would be Marjorie Perloff's The Vienna Paradox. If you're seeking a memoir and a meditation with first class writing, try this. Perloff is also a Professor (Emerita) of English and Comparative Literature. The difference is night and day.

Another suggestion would be to read some of the works of either Jorie Graham or Susan Sontag. They, like Hampl, were also MacArthur Fellowship winners from 1990.

I can't believe they found a publisher for this off the wall, all over the park supposed book.
I can't believe I bought it. I think it's supposed to be book.