Jacques Arago
{{Short description|French writer, artist and explorer (1790–1855)}}
File:Arago, Jacques 1839.jpg]]
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
File:Vue de Notre Dame De Bon Voyage (Rio de Janeiro) by Jacques Etienne Victor Arago 1790-1850.jpg
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 six Arago brothers. His parents were François Bonaventure Arago (1754–1814) and Marie Arago (1755–1845). His four other brothers were Jean Arago (1788–1836), a general in the Mexican army; Victor Arago (1792-1867), a military in France; Joseph Arago (1796-1860), also a military in France and Mexico, Étienne Arago (1802–1892), a writer and politician.
Jacques Arago joined Louis de Freycinet as an artist when he left Toulon in 1817 in command of a scientific voyage around the world aboard the corvette Uranie. The expedition returned in 1820 and Arago was the first to publish an account, the Promenade autour du monde, in the form of letters to a friend named Battle, in 1822. An English translation followed in 1823. {{cite book |author= Jacques Arago |title= 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 |publisher= Treuttel & Wurtz, Treuttal, jun. & Richter |year= 1823 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=rLENAAAAQAAJ }} He continued to expand on his adventures in further editions and in the late 1830s published a much longer version under the title Souvenirs d'un Aveugle{{cite book |last1=Arago |first1=Jacques |title=Souvenirs d'un Aveugle |date=1839 |publisher=Garnier Frères |location=Paris |url=https://archive.org/details/souvenirsdunave00araggoog/page/n13/mode/2up |accessdate=2020-02-03}} (Memoirs of a Blind Man). There are significant differences from the Promenade and the reliability is in doubt. Having been given a challenge many years later by a lady at a social dinner, he then published Voyage autour du monde, sans la lettre A (Voyage around the world, without the letter A), later known as Curieux voyage autour du monde, in 1853, where he tells of his round trip lipogrammatically, that is, without once using the letter "A".[http://www.mediterranees.net/voyageurs/jacques_arago/texte.html Curieux voyage autour du monde de Jacques Arago] The lady replied with a letter without the letter C.Fabricio Cardenas, [http://vieuxpapierspo.blogspot.fr/2015/03/le-voyage-sans-de-jacques-arago.html Vieux papiers des Pyrénées-Orientales, Le voyage sans A de Jacques Arago], 17 March 2015
On the Freycinet expedition to Hawaii in 1819, Arago "showed Riouriou a Camera obscura,"{{cite book |author= Jacques Arago |title= 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 |publisher= Treuttel & Wurtz, Treuttal, jun. & Richter |year= 1823 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=rLENAAAAQAAJ }} 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.
He died in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Over forty of his drawings were donated to the Honolulu Museum of Art by Frances Damon Holt.{{cite web |title= Tattoo Traditions of Hawai'i: Original Drawings by Jacques Arago: John Dominis and Patches Damon Holt Gallery |publisher= Honolulu Museum of Art |url= http://www.honoluluacademy.org/cmshaa/academy/index.aspx?id=1524 |accessdate= 2010-02-13 }}
Works
- 1822 : Promenade autour du monde pendant les années 1817, 1818, 1819 et 1820, sur les corvettes du Roi L'Uranie et La Physicienne, commandées par M. Freycinet
= Plays =
- 1825 : Le Compagnon d'infortune ou les Prisonniers, by Emmanuel Théaulon and Jacques Arago
- 1832 : Le Duc de Reichstadt, by Louis Lurine and Jacques Arago
- 1834 : Les Papillotes, by Jacques-François Ancelot and Jacques Arago
- 1834 : Un noviciat diplomatique
- 1836 : Le Cadet de Gascogne, by Léon Buquet and Jacques Arago
- 1837 : Un mois à Naples, by Duplessy and Jacques Arago
- 1838 : Mademoiselle d’Alvigny, lieutenant de dragons
- 1840 : Le Camélia, by Édouard Gouin and Jacques Arago
- 1840 : L’Éclat de rire, by Alexandre Martin and Jacques Arago
= Essays =
- 1824 : Collection de proverbes et bons-mots
- 1824 : Aux jeunes poètes de l'époque
- 1827 : Le Fond du sac ou les Rognures de la censure
- 1829 : Promenades historiques, philosophiques et pittoresques dans le département de la Gironde
Gallery
File:'Ooro, One of the Principal Officers of Kamehameha II', pen and ink wash over graphite by Jacques Arago, 1819, Honolulu Academy of Arts.jpg|Ooro, One of the Principal Officers of Kamehameha II, pen and ink wash over graphite, 1819, Honolulu Museum of Art
File:'Iles Sandwich - Manier dont les Naturels se Tatouent' (Tattooing, Sandwich Islands) by Jacques Arago.jpg|Tattooing, Sandwich Islands, Honolulu Museum of Art
See also
{{commons category|Jacques Arago}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{Internet Archive author |search=( Jacques AND Arago )}}
- {{OL author|4488057A}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Arago, Jacques}}
Category:People from Pyrénées-Orientales
Category:19th-century French writers
Category:Writers from Occitania (administrative region)