Jacques Arago

Jacques Étienne Victor Arago (6 March 1790 – 27 November 1855) was a French writer, artist and explorer, author of a Voyage Round the World.

Biography

Jacques was born in Estagel, Pyrénées-Orientales. He was the brother of François Arago (1786–1853), a scientist and politician, the most famous of the four Arago brothers. His two other brothers were Jean Arago (1788–1836), a general in the Mexican army; and Étienne Arago (1802–1892), a writer and politician.

Jacques Arago joined Louis de Freycinet on his 1817 voyage around the world aboard the ship Uranie, which inspired his witty Voyage autour du monde.[1]

On the Freycinet expedition to Hawaii in 1819, Arago "showed Rieourious a Camera obscura," the first such ever seen in the Hawaiian islands.

Although Arago lost his sight in 1837, he went on traveling and writing for the theater. In Curieux voyage autour du monde (1853), he tells of his round trip lipogrammatically, that is, without once using the letter "a".[2]

He died in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Over forty of his drawings were donated to the Honolulu Museum of Art by Frances Damon Holt.[3]

Gallery

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jacques Arago.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Jacques Arago (1823). Narrative of a voyage round the world, in the Uranie and Physicienne corvettes, commanded by Captain Freycinet, during the years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820. Treuttel & Wurtz, Treuttal, jun. & Richter.
  2. ↑ Curieux voyage autour du monde de Jacques Arago
  3. ↑ "Tattoo Traditions of Hawai'i: Original Drawings by Jacques Arago: John Dominis and Patches Damon Holt Gallery". Honolulu Museum of Art. Retrieved 2010-02-13.

External links