[Little side note on previous post on the Merrimack Necklace from my cuz in Newport News that took the picture of the necklace for the paper, any that did not see that post Let me know if you'd like the pic be glad to send it along & do have the full view of the donor & Museum Educator. It is a very nice viewable picture either way. I asked my cuz which of the hands in the lst photo was hers as I did not at the time realize she had taken the photo :o)! -Bless you sweetie - I was taking the photo. Ladys in lt: green is the donor of the carved wooden Merrimack necklace, in dark with necklace is our new educator Winette Jeffery. I have sent another article for you from today's paper - large one on the new exhibit of original John White water colors (1593) at Jamestown. Much of our museum's Indian gallery exhibit is worked around the Theodore De Bry engravings (black/white) of these beautiful pieces. Please let me know asap if it does not arrive and I'll re-send. Enjoy! Cuz Jean ======================= Now if you go to the link at the bottom of this post and you have fast speed there is a video of his water colors there. I have dial up so its hard to view a video for me. I saw one of them thou of Nat Am in canoes fishing, absolutely gorgeous! There are also some links in the story you can click on that are blue underlined for add'l info.....Enjoy & I envy any of you that can attend this Jamestown gala. If you do and take pictures, remember me :o) My 3x grandmother's Harris line returns to Jamestown late 1680s! If any of you are on the NC mail list you might want to post it there. I was but not presently. Thanks kindly, Nena NE Wa] ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Portrait of a new world John White's works detailed what he saw when he arrived on the Eastern Shore By MARK ST. JOHN ERICKSON | 247-4783 July 20, 2008 If the pen is really mightier than the sword, imagine the power of John White's paintbrush. For more than 200 years, his keen-eyed watercolor views of the native plants, animals and people he encountered during a 1585 expedition to what is now North Carolina>>> http://www.dailypress.com/topic/us/north-carolina-PLGEO100100900000000.topic ranked as the most influential images of the New World. Even today, they're renowned around the globe as some of the rarest, most vivid and detailed representations of a lost way of life —one that was captured in the last moments before both it and the surrounding environment began to give way to the irresistible tide of European settlement. Not for more than four decades, however, has White's unparalleled collection of more than 70 pictures been seen altogether — much less in the land where they were originally painted. That makes the landmark display at Jamestown Settlement http://www.dailypress.com/topic/arts-culture/culture/jamestown-settlement-PLCUL000166.topic — where "A New World: England's First View of America" opened this past week — a once-in-a-lifetime exhibit. "These are some of the greatest treasures of our museum — and we don't send them out easily," says Kim Sloan, assistant keeper of prints and drawings at the British Museum. "That's why we haven't done it for more than 40 years." Commissioned "to draw to liefe one of each kinde of thing that is strange to us in England," White was part journalist, part naturalist and part salesman — and his pictures of native life in and around the Algonquian villages of Pomeiooc, Secotan and Aquascoqoc had an enormous impact on subsequent European colonization. Especially after they were reproduced by engraver Theodor de Bry to illustrate the milestone account written by White's fellow adventurer Thomas Harriot, they became the gold standard of New World views — feeding the imaginations of later artists and readers for more than 10 generations. What makes this exhibit of images so different from the much more frequently seen engravings, however, is the crispness of eye and skill of hand you can see only in the original watercolors. Though battered by time as well as fire and water damage, they're clearly first-class, deluxe little paintings meant for the noble eyes of the expedition's sponsor — Sir Walter Raleigh — if not the royal gaze of Queen Elizabeth herself. And viewing them in their original state is like seeing White's pictorial account of the New World for the first time. "When you see the originals, they're like nothing else. You just can't reproduce their colors and their luminosity," says Sloan, who studied the watercolors for more than a year — sometimes under a microscope — in preparation for the exhibit. "And the more you look at them, the more impressed you are — especially with the details he was able to get." Despite White's pictorial skills, historians know precious little about him or the development of his talents. His pioneering maps of what is now the American East Coast and the Outer Banks of North Carolina — plus his meticulous renderings of the fortifications that the English expedition built in Puerto Rico — suggest that he may be have been an engineer named John White who served in Ireland in the late 1560s. Another John White is listed as a member of the London Painters Stainers Company in 1580. Though some historians believe White may have been linked to Raleigh through his service in Ireland or a common tie to the English West Country — from which many of the North Carolina co-adventurers hailed — virtually all of his biography before the 1585 expedition is unproven. "John White is such a common name — and when you get into the records, you can't tell them apart," Sloan says. "But we do know that he had a coat of arms. He was a gentleman. And my argument is that he [was] one of the adventurers who funded the Raleigh expeditions — and that his role was to use his talents as an artist to record what he saw." Whatever his origin or his training, White clearly made the most out of what is now considered a historic opportunity. He began painting the new, unusual and potentially profitable sights he saw as soon as the 1585 expedition, which was designed to build a base for later colonists, sailed from the Atlantic into the West Indies. His drawings of plants and animals make up a large part of what would become a pictorial logbook of the explorers' discoveries. Some subjects were painted for practical reasons, Sloan says. Future expeditions, for example, needed to be able to recognize potential food sources and crops they could gather or grow. But White also seemed to have a keen sense of the powerful curiosity that fed much of the European interest in the flora and fauna of the New World. "He would try to make his paintings of fish look as much like the living fish as possible — because fish change color when they die," Sloan says. "And though there are some mistakes — too many toes on a turtle or the eyes of a crab looking not quite right — they were incredibly accurate overall. Even today, scientists can look at his watercolors and tell what species they are." White's portraits of the Algonquian people who inhabited coastal North Carolina offered his audience in Europe a spectacular window on the New World, too. Though made up of only 20 images — including a historic map of the region — they show not just the men, women and children of this strange new land but also the highly organized nature of their towns, social customs, religious ceremonies and food production. In recent years, especially, some critics have objected to the mannered poses of some portraits, which seem to suggest White's reliance on classical models rather than direct observation. But as Sloan points out, the Elizabethan artist — like most other people of his time — was likely more focused on reproducing the minute details of the clothing, jewelry, hairstyles and tattoos that communicated his subject's social place and importance. He also took great pains to record such distinctive sights as a village elder and a medicine man as well as such activities as fishing, cooking and dancing. "Certainly, the pièce de résistance of the collection is the drawings he made of the North Carolina Indians," Sloan says. "Many of them are filled with incredible detail — and they're all here." Fortunately for posterity, most of White's drawings survived his hasty departure from North Carolina aboard an unexpected ship captained by Sir Francis Drake in 1586. Bound together in a presentation album, the paintings also survived a mid-19th-century fire that threatened them with both flames and water damage. White himself did not fare so well after his landmark works were completed. Traveling back to North Carolina as the new governor of the English colony in 1587, he was forced to leave his poorly supplied settlers — including *his pregnant daughter Virginia Dare* [now you know WHO James White was eh?] — at the original site on the Outer Banks instead of relocating to a more favorable spot on the Chesapeake Bay. And when he returned from England with a much-delayed relief expedition in 1590, the legendary lost colony had disappeared. "The last we hear of him is in a letter from Ireland in 1593," Sloan says. "He spent all his fortune on these expeditions — and on trying to find his family. But no one was ever found." John White watercolors exhibition Jamestown Settlement ... PURCHASE TICKETS ONLINE. MAP & DIRECTIONS to Jamestown Settlement and Yorktown Victory Center http://www.historyisfun.org/John-White-Watercolors.htm BRITISH MUSEUM EXHIBITION OF JOHN WHITE WATERCOLORS COMING TO ... Jamestown Settlement and Yorktown Victory Center http://historyisfun.org/John-White-Exhibition.htm White Watercolors/De Bry Engravings-staff of Virtual Jamestown is pleased to bring online the watercolor drawings of John White and the corresponding engravings of Theodor De Bry. http://www.virtualjamestown.org/images/white_debry_html/introduction.html Index of White watercolors/De Bry Engravings http://www.virtualjamestown.org/images/white_debry_html/jamestown.html News to Use -What: "A New World: England's First View of America," 16th-century watercolors by John White [links to this at the link below] Where: Jamestown Settlement, Jamestown Road (Route 31), James City County [links to this at the link below] When: 9 a.m.-6 p.m. daily though Aug. 15, then 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily through Oct. 15 Cost: $13.50 adults, $6.25 children 6-12 Info: 888-593-4682 toll free/ http://www.historyisfun.org A free evening lecture series at Jamestown Settlement Aug. 9: Early American history specialist Daniel Richter talks about "Tassentasse in Tsenacomoco: Native People and the English, 1560-1622" Sept. 20: Tate Gallery British art curator Karen Hearn talks about "Painting in Elizabethan England: John White in Context" Advance reservations for the 7 p.m. lectures can be made at 757-253-4415 or rsvp.lecture@jyf.virginia.gov. The complete article can be viewed at: http://www.dailypress.com/features/dp-gl_newworldpix.0720jul20,0,5415510.story Visit dailypress.com at http://www.dailypress.com