John Baptist Jackson Part 3

[Ill.u.s.tration: TAILPIECE in _Histoire generale de Languedoc_, by Claude Vic and J. J. Vaissete, Paris, 1730, vol. 1. Note the even tone and clean cutting compared with Papillon's light-and-dark contrasts and dainty cutting.

Actual size.]

_Venice: The Heroic Effort_

After leaving Paris, Jackson and Lewis journeyed to Ma.r.s.eilles, where Jackson became seriously ill and remained for six months, while Lewis continued to Genoa. Regaining his health, Jackson went on to Genoa and then to Leghorn, Pisa, and Lucca, arriving in Florence in January 1731.

There, during a stay of several months, he discussed with the Grand Duke of Tuscany a reprinting of Vasari's _Lives of the Painters_. Jackson was to make cuts for the headpieces, but the project was eventually dropped, and he continued to Bologna, where he remained a month chiefly in the company of the woodcutter G. M. Moretti, who showed him some original blocks cut by Ugo da Carpi for printing in chiaroscuro. He then proceeded to Venice, arriving "three Days before the Feast of the Ascension in 1731, and was highly surprized to find no one Engraver on Wood capable to do such poor Work, he has seen at Bolonia." Jackson was amply supplied with strong recommendations from Florence, and on showing his work to leading printers was urged to settle in Venice, where a fine woodcutter capable of both designing and executing cuts was urgently needed. Here he also met Count Antonio Maria Zanetti, who was well-known as a chiaroscuro woodcutter besides being a collector and patron of the arts. Their first meeting is described in the _Enquiry_:

... very soon after his [Jackson's] Arrival he had an Interview with Signior _Antonio Maria Zannetti_; from the Accounts he had heard from Mr. _Marriette_ in _France_ of this Man's Work in _Chiaro Oscuro_, he expected to see some wonderful Performance, but _Parturiunt montes nascetur ridiculus mus_ is a most applicable Proverb on this Occasion. I who have perused this grand Raccolta of _Zannetti's_, must acknowledge that they are a trifling Performance, inferior to any Attempts of this Kind in our Times; and indeed it is no Wonder, when we come to know that this Man never used a Press, nor so much as a Hand Roll to print his Works with. Our Countryman says he had room to suspect he neither did cut or print these Works, which was confirmed by the poor Men who performed both. But such was the Vanity of this Author, that he told the Public in his Dedications that he was the Restorer of that lost Art, whereas he only drawed them on the Blocks, which might have been done as well by those that cut and printed them. At this first Interview the low Cunning of this Man was discovered....[24]

[Footnote 24: Zanetti certainly cut many of his own blocks, as the prints with the signature "A. M. Zanetti, sculp." attest. But he also made use of craftsmen in the traditional fashion for other blocks and for the mechanical phase of printing.]

Jackson undoubtedly disliked Zanetti's soft and delicate treatment, so characteristic of 18th-century work, and considered his interpretation of Parmigianino and Raphael little short of sacrilege. Since Jackson was incapable of hiding his feelings a quarrel became inevitable. The first rift came when Zanetti let Jackson have for a few weeks a drawing by Parmigianino, the _Venus and Cupid with a Bow_, to be executed in four blocks. The print was done "intirely in _Hugo's_ [da Carpi's] manner, with this Difference, that no _Oscuro_ block has a Contour to resemble the original Drawing it was done from, which is seldom seen in _Hugo's_ works...." Zanetti, surprised by the fine quality of the first proof, proposed to pa.s.s it off on Mariette in Paris as an original da Carpi print. He even stained it and cut holes in it to give the impression of aged worm-eaten paper. At the same time Jackson executed another chiaroscuro, also based on a Parmigianino drawing, the _Woman Standing Holding Jar on her Head_. Zanetti, says the _Enquiry_--

... caressed the Author with the highest Expressions of Zeal for his Service, protesting he would communicate his Capacity to his Correspondents all over _Europe_, which would be the Means to advance his Fortune, especially amongst the _English_ Quality and Gentry who travelled _Italy_. The intent of all those fine Promises was to get the two Sets of Blocks into his Hands, which he expected as a Present for the Use of the two original Drawings, from which these Prints were taken; but this not being complyed with, the _Restaurati_ expressed a Resentment at this Refusal, and took all the Opportunities to distress the Undertakings of any Sort performed by Mr. _Jackson_, during fourteen Years Residence in _Venice_.

Zanetti was charged, in some obscure way, with obstructing Jackson's work in cutting 136 blocks for the _Istoria del Testamento Vecchio e Nuovo_, popularly known as the _Bibbia del Nicolosi_,[25] published by G. B. Albrizzi in 1737. We are informed that Filippo Fa.r.s.etti, one of Jackson's patrons, paid him for the whole set of cuts after rebuking Zanetti for interference.

[Footnote 25: These cuts were also used for the _Biblia Sacra_, published by Hertz in Venice in 1740.]

The Englishman evidently was kept well occupied with preparing cuts for printers, among them Baglioni and Pezzana. For the latter he made 24 woodcuts for a quarto edition of a _Biblia Sacra_ and an unspecified number of ornaments for a folio edition. Jackson was given a free hand to conceive and carry out the cuts as he pleased.

While working on these prints he began--

to consider on his favourite Work in _Chiaro Oscuro_, and by intervals examined what he had projected at _Paris_. He began first to make experiments with Tints, and having proved that Four Impressions could produce Ten positive Tints, besides _Tratti_ and _Lights_; he resolved to try a large Piece from _Rubens's_ Judgment of _Solomon_, with an intent to prove what could be done with the Efforts of a Type Press before he launched into greater Expences with another Machine.

He wanted this press in his home, where he could experiment as he pleased without tying up workmen or equipment in Pezzana's shop. It might have been professional delicacy that prompted him to ask Pezzana's permission to have a private press built, or it might have been a bid for patronage from the generous and influential printer. In any event, Pezzana responded by having his carpenters build and install the press at his own expense. To avoid official registrations or craft suspicions, he had it registered as his own. The trial proofs of _The Judgment of Solomon_, printed from four blocks, pleased Jackson in every regard except vigor of impression. Unfortunately no edition was published, despite the dedication to Filippo Fa.r.s.etti.

Finished in 1735, this woodcut was probably the first to translate a painting in a full range of tones. From the purely technical standpoint it was an incredible achievement. Jackson created a vivid approximation of a large and complex painting and at the same time produced a vigorous woodcut. From four superimposed woodblocks, with almost no linework, he was able to capture the full-blooded forms of Rubens. By keeping his means simple Jackson a.s.serted the importance of his cutting and printing, the expressiveness of his drawing, and the fluidity of his tones. Obviously such a procedure required major decisions as to what to omit and what to stress; in other words it required interpretive abilities of a high order.

Evidently Jackson believed that his new chiaroscuro method required heavier pressure than the platen press was capable of. (On the usual wooden screw press the size of the platen never exceeded 13 by 19 inches, because the impressions made with a larger platen would not have been strong enough; for prints larger than the platen, the bed was moved and the platen pulled down twice.) He had the press returned to Pezzana and set out to build a more suitable printing machine.

He found there were other means to be employed beside a Type Press, and having examined the Theory of his Invention put it in Practice, by erecting a Rolling Press of another Construction than what is used for printing Copper Plates.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ILl.u.s.tRATION in _Biblia Sacra_ published by Hertz, Venice, 1740, vol. 1. Originally cut by Jackson for Albrizzi's _Istoria del Testamento Vecchio e Nuovo_, Venice, 1737.

Actual size.]

In Paris Jackson had suggested using a cylinder press for printing wood blocks. The gentlemen to whom the suggestion was made, Count de Caylus, Coypel, and Mariette, were sure that the enormous pressure would split the blocks. The Englishman, on the contrary, felt that the pressure, properly controlled by a chase, would hold the blocks together. Printing would be much more rapid and the exceptional vigor of the impression would suggest a hand drawing. The use of cylinder presses for chiaroscuro printing was already well known to experts. George Lallemand and Ludolph Businck, sometime between 1623 and 1640, had used not one but a series of six cylinders on three joined presses, with three printers simultaneously inking separate blocks with different tones.

Impressions were then printed from each block in succession.

Papillon[26] described this press, and also another with a special chase designed at an unspecified date by Nicolas Le Sueur. Jackson's prints show a much stronger impression than those of Businck or Le Sueur. No details of his press are known, although Thomas Bewick[27] reported that Jackson as an old man had shown him a drawing of its construction.

[Footnote 26: Papillon, vol. 2, 1766, pp. 372-373.]

[Footnote 27: Bewick, 1925, p. 213.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ill.u.s.tration for Albrizzi's _Istoria_, in which it was cut No. 136.

From Hertz's _Biblia Sacra_, vol. 1.

Actual size.]

The cylinder press of Jackson's design was finished in 1735 and paid for by the income from prolonged sieges of work for printing offices. But the overwork and resulting exhaustion laid him low; a serious illness followed and for several months he was close to death. When he eventually regained his health he found that his cuts for Baglioni and Pezzana had been copied and mutilated by an engraver at Ancona. This pirate was encouraged by the head of a large printing establishment newly founded in Venice, who thereupon offered Jackson work at greatly reduced prices. He refused the offer. With hack woodcutters now stealing both his designs and his manner of cutting, and working at a far lower rate than he could afford, he found that the market for his higher priced work had almost entirely disappeared. He still received occasional commissions, among others the t.i.tle page to a translation of Suetonius' _Lives of the Twelve Caesars_, printed by Piacentini in Venice in 1738. His splendid design, which shows considerable burin work, is at odds with the crudity of the remainder of the book. Inferior hands reproduced in woodcut outline Hubert Goltzius' medallion portraits of Roman emperors, originally executed in chiaroscuro (see p. 22).

Stimulated, no doubt, by the combination of chiaroscuro and antiquity, Jackson produced a portrait of Julius Caesar in four tones of brown after Egidius Sadeler's engraving of a subsequently lost painting attributed to t.i.tian. This was not the only time Jackson translated a line engraving and added chiaroscuro modeling of his own. He did not make line-for-line copies. Jackson was interested in broad effects even when leaning heavily on the delicate linear conventions of line engraving. The lines, therefore, are firm and widely s.p.a.ced, like photographically enlarged details of copper-plate work. Apparently Jackson felt that the addition of one or two tones from wood blocks would supply the intermediate tints and at the same time would prevent the line system from becoming obtrusive.

The decided influence of line engraving was probably the result of his a.s.sociation in 1731 with G. A. Faldoni in Venice. Influenced by Claude Mellan, this engraver made use of swelling parallel lines to create tonal gradations. Jackson had first become interested in this technical method through Ecman's woodcuts after Callot, and once Faldoni had strengthened the attraction he found kindred influences in the engravings of Villamena and Alberti, particularly the former, from whom he also acquired design ideas he later put to use in his wallpapers.

Jackson's discovery that he could to some extent use copper-plate techniques was not a reversion to the style of the Parisian group of Le Clerc copyists. Jackson used the line system as a means for creating forms in conjunction with tones; the Parisian woodcutters used it to imitate the delicate quality of line engraving. He had a formal aesthetic end in view; their purpose was to render realistic details in a decorative framework.

With opportunities for book ill.u.s.tration gone, Jackson was in a difficult position. His novel chiaroscuro experiments had consumed valuable time and had lost him his standing as a steady worker for printers. Near dest.i.tution and scouting around for fresh applications of the woodcut, he decided to make prints for wallpaper on his new press.

It was a logical step for Jackson, not only because he knew something of the process but also because he could make use of the chiaroscuro blocks already prepared. Late in 1737 or early in 1738 he had his first samples ready and sent them to Robert Dunbar in London, together with his conditions for carrying on the trade in Venice. Negotiations dragged, and Dunbar died before they could come to terms, but the idea of using his skill and his machine for turning out wallpaper continued to occupy his mind as a possibility. But, for the time, the undertaking had to be laid aside while Jackson looked for more immediate means of employment.

At this juncture Joseph Smith befriended him. A merchant of long standing in Venice, who became the British consul there in 1745, Smith was a bibliophile, gem collector, and connoisseur of the arts. In spite of Walpole's sneering reference to him as "the merchant of Venice," it must be said that he was expert in his fields of interest. He had excellent taste. His fine collection of books was purchased by George III in 1765, and the small Rembrandt _Descent from the Cross_ once in his possession is now in the National Gallery in London.

From Smith's bronze statuette of Neptune, by Giovanni da Bologna, Jackson produced a chiaroscuro print in four blocks, in imitation, he a.s.serted, of the prints of Andrea Andreani.[28] In suggesting the influence of this master, Jackson did not refer to his technique or style but to his subject: in 1584-1585 Andreani had produced a chiaroscuro series after other statues by Giovanni da Bologna (B. XII, VI, 1-4).

[Footnote 28: The _Neptune_ was printed on a type press. One of the blocks split in printing and Jackson stated that thereafter he used the cylinder press exclusively.]

The next work in Smith's collection to be reproduced in chiaroscuro was Rembrandt's _Descent from the Cross_. Jackson was evidently well satisfied with the results, and with good reason. It is an extremely effective print, with pale yellow lights and transparent shadows. The drawing is remarkable in its feeling for the Rembrandtesque style. The sky and other parts show English white-line burin work of the type found in Mattaire's _Latin Cla.s.sics_ and Croxall's _Aesop's Fables_. The _Enquiry_ says (p. 45):

As this Painting was extremely favourable for this sort of Printing, he endeavoured to display all his Art in this Performance, and the Drawing of _Rembrandt's_ Stile is intirely preserved in this Print; it is dedicated to Mr. _Smith_, who generously gave the Prints to all Gentlemen who came to _Venice_ at that time in order to recommend the Talents of a Man whose Industry might please the curious, and at least be of some Use to procure him Encouragement to proceed in other Works of that Kind.

Encouragement soon came. Smith interested two of his friends, Charles Frederick and Smart Lethieullier, and the three proposed in 1739 the undertaking of a grand project in chiaroscuro, the reproduction of 17 huge paintings by Venetian masters. This was to be financed by subscription, says the _Enquiry_ (p. 46):

the Proposals in _French_, and the Conditions expressed therein, were drawn up as they thought proper, without consulting the Difficulties that must attend an Enterprize that required some years to accomplish.

Their own subscriptions were no doubt generous but Jackson found that his total income from this form of financing, together with possible future sales, would hardly cover his expenses. Other hazards made his situation even worse. War broke out in Europe before he was halfway through, and many English gentlemen, his potential subscribers, left the country. This exodus meant financial disaster, but Jackson kept at his task. He should, he said, have gone to England for his own best interests but felt that he couldn't disappoint his distinguished patrons.

The first print completed was after t.i.tian's _St. Peter Martyr_ at the Dominican Church of Sts. Giovanni and Paolo. In coloring it is similar to the Rembrandt print, with gray-green sky, yellow lights, and cool brown shadows. While attractive and forceful, it is not as effective as the Rembrandt because t.i.tian, with his greater range of color, presented a more complex problem. Most of the prints thereafter leaned to monochromes in either browns or greens. The _St. Peter_ was finished in 1739 and in the same year five more prints were brought to completion.

In 1740 he produced the three sheets which made up Tintoretto's _Crucifixion_ in the Scuola di San Rocco.[29] These were intended to be joined, if desired, to form one long print measuring about 22 50 inches.

[Footnote 29: Jackson mentioned that he was seen drawing the blocks in the presence of Sir Roger Newdigate, Sir Bouchier Wrey "and other gentlemen of distinction." The reason for such reference was probably some comment that he might have traced his outlines from Agostino Carracci's 1582 engraving of the same subject in three large sheets (B. 23), each of which joins the others at precisely the same places as Jackson's sheets. I am indebted to Dr. Jakob Rosenberg of the Fogg Museum for pointing out these similarities.]

Of the ten remaining subjects, the last, Jacopo Ba.s.sano's _Dives and Lazarus_, was finished at the end of 1743, and the set of 24 plates (some paintings, as noted, were reproduced in three sheets and some in two) was published as a bound volume by J. B. Pasquali in Venice, 1745, under the t.i.tle _t.i.tiani Vecelii, Pauli Caliarii, Jacobi Robusti et Jacobi de Ponte; opera selectiora a Joanne Baptista Jackson, Anglo, ligno coelata et coloribus adumbrata_.

The Venetian prints were not merely an extension of chiaroscuro, they represented a daring effort to go beyond line engraving for reproducing paintings. Justification for this attempt is given in the _Essay_ (p. 6):

... and though those delicate Finishings, and minute Strokes, which make up great Part of the Merit of engraving on Copper, are not to be found in those cut on Wood in _Chiaro Oscuro_; yet there is a masterly and free Drawing, a boldness of Engraving and Relief, which pleases a true Taste more than all the little Exactness found in the Engravings on Copper Plates ... and indeed has an Effect which the best Judges very often prefer to any Prints from Engravings, done with all that Exactness, minute Strokes of the Graver, and Neatness of Work, which is sure to captivate the Minds of those whose Taste is formed upon the little Considerations of delicately handling the Tools, and not upon the Freedom, Life and Spirit of the separate Figures, and indeed the whole Composition.

A novel device, embossing, was employed to give added strength to the prints. This development had been foreshadowed by earlier prints and pages of text which showed a slight indentation where the dampened paper received the impression. Embossing had probably first been used systematically by Elisha Kirkall in 1722-24, and by Arthur Pond in his chiaroscuros, made in 1732-36 in conjunction with George Knapton, after drawings by old masters. Jackson admired Pond's work even though it combined etched outlines with two tone blocks printed from wood.[30]

Pond's embossing was delicate and applied sparely only in certain forms, such as ruined columns, but Jackson's sunken areas were heavier and franker, consciously intended to give an all-over effect. Since the paper could not be pressed out without weakening the embossing, it often took on the scarred and buckled look that characterizes the Venetian chiaroscuros.

[Footnote 30: _Enquiry_, p. 35. The j.a.panese began to use embossing about 1730. See Reichel, 1926, p. 48.]

The set had occupied him for 4 years, during which he had planned, cut, and proofed 94 blocks.

No sooner was that ended, and a little Breathing required after that immense Fatigue, in the Year 1744 he attempted to print in Colours, and published six Landskips in Imitation of Painting in Acquarello.

[Ill.u.s.tration: t.i.tle page for _Gajo Suetonio tranquillo, le vite de'dodici Cesari_, Piacentini, Venice, 1738.]

This new set, dedicated to Robert d'Arcy, British Amba.s.sador to the Republic of Venice, was based on gouache paintings by Marco Ricci, probably done on goatskin or leather in his usual manner. For Jackson to make these color prints was a logical step, since his work had tended toward the full chromatic range even in the chiaroscuros, which "adumbrated" color. His new prints were all color-- clear, sensitive, and tonally just. It is not surprising that he seized upon Ricci's opaque watercolors. The paintings of the Venetian masters had darkened in ill-lit churches, the shadows had become murky, there were too many figures. But the Ricci paintings were small and clearly patterned, the color sparkled.