Jacques Le Moyne
Jacques le Moyne de Morgues (c. 1533 – 1588) was a French artist and member of Jean Ribault's expedition to the New World. His depictions of Native American, colonial life and plants are of extraordinary historical importance.
Biography
Expedition
Born in Dieppe, France, Le Moyne was an artist who accompanied the French expedition of Jean Ribault and René Laudonnière in from 1562, when they arrived at the St. Johns River, to 1564, when they founded Fort Caroline.[1] Painting in the Calvinist style, he is mostly known for his artistic depictions of the landscape, flora, fauna, and, most importantly, the inhabitants of the New World encountered by the French and Spanish. His drawings of the cultures commonly referred to as the Timucua (known through their reproduction by the Dutch publisher Theodor de Bry) are largely regarded as some of the most accessible data about the cultures of the Southeastern Coastal United States, however, many of these depictions and maps are currently being questioned by historians and archaeologists as to their authenticity. During this expedition he became known as a cartographer and an illustrator as he painted landscapes and reliefs of the land they crossed.
Ribault explored the mouth of the St. Johns River in Florida and erected a stone monument there before leading the party north and establishing a settlement on Parris Island, South Carolina. He then sailed back to France for supplies while Laudonnière took charge of the colony. Finding conditions unfavorable on Parris Island Laudonnière and the others eventually moved back to Florida where they founded Fort Caroline on the St. Johns Bluff in what is now Jacksonville.
A year later, the settlers engaged in a conflict with the Spanish colony of St. Augustine thirty miles to the south. The Spanish, under the leadership of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, stormed the colony and killed most of the Huguenots, though Laudonnière and Le Moyne escaped and were eventually rescued to England.
Paintings
All but one of Le Moyne's original drawings were reportedly destroyed in the Spanish attack on Fort Caroline; most the images attributed to him are actually engravings created by the Belgian printer and publisher Theodor de Bry, which are based on recreations Le Moyne produced from memory. These reproductions, distributed by Le Moyne in printed volumes, are some of the earliest images of European colonization in the New World to be circulated. Le Moyne died in London in 1588, and his detailed account of the voyage, Brevis narratio eorum quae in Florida Americai provincia Gallis acciderunt, was published in 1591. A re-edition of his paintings including critical response has been published in 1977 by the British Museum.
The images of the Timucua and related maps, said to be based on Le Moyne's drawings by de Bry, have fallen under intense scrutiny and their legitimacy as works related to Le Moyne are considered very questionable. Jerald Milanich, author of books on the Timucua and an archaeologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History has published an article in which he questions whether Le Moyne produced drawings of the Timucua at all, based on the unexplainable lack of any definite documentation or evidence. The one existing painting believed to be by Le Moyne himself (owned by the New York Public Library) has been argued to be a replica of one of de Bry's etchings, rather than a source for it, by anthropologist Christian Feest.
(See: Milanich, Jerald, "The Devil in the Details", Archaeology, May/June 2005)
Notes
- ^ (1997) The Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates 10th Edition, Collins. ISBN 0-06-270192-4.
- ^ "Apple (Malus pumila Millervar)". Prints & Books. Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved 2007-10-20.
References
- Heller, Henry. (2002) Labour, Science and Technology in France, 1500-1620, Cambridge University Press. p. 79. ISBN 0-521-89380-1.
- Jacques LeMoyne
- Images of the engravings
- Milanich, Jerald, "The Devil in the Details", Archaeology, May/June 2005, pp. 27-31.
External links
- Gallica, la bibliothèque numérique (Bibliothèque nationale de France): Théodore de Bry, Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues and the Timucua Indians
- Artfact
- Robert Viking O'Brien's article on LeMoyne's Brevis narratio from The Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Journal of Florida Literature