Blue arabesque : a search for the sublime / Patricia Hampl.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hampl, Patricia, 1946-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hampl, Patricia, 1946---Aesthetics.

Hampl, Patricia.

Hampl, Patricia, 1946---Travel--Mediterranean Region.

Hampl, Patricia, 1946-.

Matisse, Henri, 1869-1954.

Travel.

Aesthetics.

Mediterranean Region.

Matisse, Henri, 1869-1954--Appreciation.

Matisse, Henri.

Poets, American--20th century--Biography.

Poets, American.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

215 pages ; 19 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Orlando : Harcourt, [2006]

Summary:

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 Eugè ne 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.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 213-215).

Local Notes:

Athenaeum copy: Schneidman fund bookplate.

ISBN:

9780151015061

Online:

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description