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. 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 A Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year A Los Angeles Times Favorite Nonfiction of the Year A Minneapolis Star Tribune Best Minnesota Book of the Year 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.   ? 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.” ? The New York Times Book Review   ?Lush, intelligent.” ? Chicago Tribune   PATRICIA HAMPL is the author of four memoirs-- A Romantic Education, Virgin Time, I Could Tell You Stories, and The Florist's Daughter --and two collections of poetry. She has received a MacArthur Fellowship, among many other awards. She lives in St. Paul and is Regents Professor at the University of Minnesota.   PATRICIA HAMPL is the author of four memoirs—A Romantic Education, Virgin Time, I Could Tell You Stories, and Blue Arabesque—and two collections of poetry. She has received a MacArthur Fellowship, among many other awards. She lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. ONE Cell A spring day, 1972, best I can remember. I had taken the train from St. Paul, along the Mississippi, across green Wisconsin, to Chicago. And now, just checked into my crummy hotel, I was hurrying to meet a friend at the Chicago Art Institute, a place I didn’t know. We had agreed on the museum cafeteria, and I was directed by a guard through a series of connected galleries to a staircase. I was late—of course. Rushing—of course—paying no attention to the paintings on the walls as I hurried to get where I was supposed to have been five minutes earlier. Then, unexpectedly, several galleries shy of my destination, I came to a halt before a large, rather muddy painting in a heavy gold-colored frame, a Matisse labeled Femme et poissons rouges, rendered in English, Woman Before an Aquarium. But that’s wrong: I didn’t halt, didn’t stop. I was stopped. Apprehended, even. That’s how it felt. I stood before the painting a long minute. I couldn’t move away. I couldn’t have said why. I was simply fastened there. I wasn’t in the habit of being moved by art. I wasn’t much of a museum goer. I’d never even taken an art history class, and I thought of myself as a person almost uniquely ungifted in the visual arts. “Patricia, dear,” Sister Antoinette had said as she swished between the desks of the second graders at St. Luke’s School to see what we had drawn on the construction paper she had passed out for the class frieze, “you don’t need to tape yours on the blackboard with the others. You can do the lettering underneath.” I took it as a life assignment—doing the lettering underneath. Let the others not only make the drawings but look at the drawings. Fingerpaints, I remember dimly, had been delicious. I excelled at slinging raw color on big sheets, rubbing spirals with my fists, scraping squiggles with my nails. But I couldn’t draw, couldn’t see how to lure images from eye to hand to paper. I could only get things by writing them, reading them. In the beginning, truly for me, was the Word. Maybe only so