“a paean to the act of seeing, celebrating our capacity to be transformed by the truths art holds . . .”
New York Times Book Review
For the full text of this review, click here. 

“What's most inspired about ‘Blue Arabesque’ is that its form echoes, with apparent effortlessness, the "impersonal floating world" of Matisse's painting, and in reading it, one sees the intricate, omnidirectional workings of the writer's mind.”
Los Angeles Times Book Review

Asked in the Book Critics Circle Blog, what his “favorite reads” of 2006 were, Thomas Mallon replied, “In nonfiction I was left happiest by Patricia Hampl’s Blue Arabesque, an extended essay on the sublime that has all her usual charm and brilliance.”

“Her most sensuous, sinuous, and radiant book to date “
Booklist Starred Boxed Review

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