- Jacques le Moyne
Jacques le Moyne de Morgues (c. 1533 – 1588) was a French artist and member of
Jean Ribault 's expedition to theNew 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 ofJean Ribault and René Laudonnière in from 1562, when they arrived at theSt. Johns River , to 1564, when they foundedFort Caroline . [(1997) "The Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates 10th Edition", Collins. ISBN 0-06-270192-4.] Painting in the Calvinist style, he is mostly known for his artistic depictions of the landscape, flora, fauna, and, most importantly, the inhabitants of theNew World encountered by the French and Spanish. His drawings of the cultures commonly referred to as theTimucua (known through their reproduction by the Dutch publisherTheodor de Bry ) are largely regarded as some of the most accessible data about the cultures of the Southeastern CoastalUnited 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 inFlorida and erected a stone monument there before leading the party north and establishing a settlement onParris 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 foundedFort Caroline on the St. Johns Bluff in what is nowJacksonville .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 toEngland .url= http://www.vam.ac.uk/images/image/42252-popup.html
title= Apple (Malus pumila Millervar)
work=Prints & Books
accessdate= 2007-10-20] Victoria and Albert Museum, London]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 theBelgian printer and publisherTheodor 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 inLondon 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 theBritish 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
References
*Heller, Henry. (2002) "Labour, Science and Technology in France, 1500-1620", Cambridge University Press. p. 79. ISBN 0-521-89380-1.
* [http://fcit.usf.edu/florida/lessons/lemoyne/lemoyne.htm Jacques LeMoyne]
* [http://fcit.usf.edu/florida/photos/native/lemoyne/lemoyne.htm 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): [http://gallica.bnf.fr/FranceAmerique/page.asp?/en/T2-1-4-a.htm? Théodore de Bry, Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues and the Timucua Indians]
* [http://www.artfact.com/catalog/viewLot.cfm?lotCode=L6HLB0XZ Artfact]
* [http://www.csuchico.edu/engl/texts/lemoyne.pdf Robert Viking O'Brien's article on LeMoyne's "Brevis narratio"] from" The Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Journal of Florida Literature"
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