John Baptist Jackson Part 6

And Chatto[48] remarks:

They are very unequal in point of merit; some of them appearing harsh and crude, and others flat and spiritless, when compared with similar products by the old Italian wood engravers.

[Footnote 48: Chatto and Jackson, 1861, p. 455.]

With this verdict W. J. Linton[49] disagrees, saying, "...Chatto underrates him. I find his works very excellent and effective. _The Finding of Moses_ (2 feet high by 16 inches wide) and _Virgin Climbing the Steps of the Temple_ (after Veronese), and others, are admirable in every respect...." Duplessis[50] attacks the Venetian set heatedly and at length, yet he devotes more s.p.a.ce to expounding Jackson's deficiencies than to discussing the work of any other woodcut artist, even Durer or da Carpi.

[Footnote 49: Linton, 1889, p. 214. The second print mentioned is after t.i.tian, not Veronese.]

[Footnote 50: Duplessis, 1880, pp. 314-315. Duplessis, who was _conservateur-adjoint_ in the Cabinet des Estampes of the Bibliotheque Nationale, no doubt based his judgment on the impressions in that collection. Certainly few of these were printed by either Jackson or Pasquali.]

On the evidence we have, the new conception Jackson brought to printmaking was not fully understood until the 20th century. Pierre Gusman[51] in 1916 probably first noted the technical distinction between Jackson's work and earlier chiaroscuros.

He [Jackson] conceived his prints in a different way from the Italians, bringing in new aspects in accenting values and planes, because he did not reproduce drawings but interpreted paintings. The whites even show embossings in the paper to make the light vibrate, and a specially cut block is sometimes impressed to help in modeling the forms. Jackson, in short, very much the wood carver, combined the resources of the cameo with those of the chiaroscuro and produced curious works of combined techniques, but without equaling his predecessors, who were particularly remarkable for their simplicity of style and treatment.

[Footnote 51: Gusman, 1916, pp. 164, 165.]

One year later, in 1917, Max J. Friedlander[52] commented that relief effects in block printing were not alien additions but natural consequences of the method. His main emphasis, we note, is on the Ricci prints.

A peculiarity of the color woodcut, which first was put up with as a characteristic of the technique but finally was enhanced and utilized fully as a means of expression, is the physical relief that stands out in thick and soft paper with the sharp pressure of die wood-blocks.... No one has employed the relief of the woodcut so consciously and artfully as the Englishman John Baptist Jackson in the eighteenth century, who, particularly in some landscapes, created most effective and richly colored sheets. He has gone so far as to express forms in "blind-printing," entirely without bordering lines or contrasting colors, merely through relief pressing.

[Footnote 52: Friedlander, 1926 (1st ed. 1917), pp. 224-226.]

Anton Reichel's important history of chiaroscuro, with its magnificent color plates in facsimile, appeared in 1926.[53] He says of Jackson that his activity in chiaroscuro was "extraordinarily rich," that he created broad approximations of his subjects which made him neglect details, but that these were "convincingly translated into the language of the woodcut."

Five heroic landscapes after M. Ricci represent the artistic high point of his work, having a distinctive richness of color not previously attained by any other master of chiaroscuro. Each of the prints has a complete harmony of colors; the single color blocks-- over ten can be counted in each print-- which show in their separate tones the extraordinarily cultivated taste of the artist, give the composition a decorative effect far from any realistic imitation of nature.... The relief impressed with the blocks is so strong that, going beyond all other prior attempts of the kind, it represents an essential factor of the composition through its actual light-and-shadow effects.

[Footnote 53: Reichel, 1926, p. 48.]

Although by this time Jackson's chiaroscuros were regarded with respect and his color prints were acknowledged to be of prime importance, some of the conservative wallpaper historians were still repelled by their vigor, which did not suit genteel notions of interior decoration. Sugden and Edmondson[54] in 1925 certainly failed to understand both Jackson's work and the period in which it was done. They comment:

Jackson's bold claims to originality and merit are scarcely borne out by anything he is known to have achieved. That he had a vogue, however, seems certain, for apart from his "Essay" he has come down to us as a historical figure. To modern tastes in art many of his productions seem almost monstrous, and yet they were to some extent the expression of the time-spirit in which they were born.

[Footnote 54: Sugden and Edmondson, 1925, p. 71.]

[Transcriber's Note:

The color Plates were printed after the first page of Postscript, at the mid-sentence point "they preferred imitations of sentimental, / ba.n.a.l, story-telling oil paintings".]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 1. CHRIST GIVING THE KEYS TO ST. PETER, after Raphael]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 2. VENUS AND CUPID WITH A BOW, after Parmigianino]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 5. WOMAN MEDITATING (ST. THAIS?), after etching by Parmigianino]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 13. DESCENT FROM THE CROSS, after Rembrandt]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 43. HEROIC LANDSCAPE WITH WATERING PLACE, RIDERS, AND OBELISK, after Marco Ricci]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 40. HEROIC LANDSCAPE WITH FISHERMAN, COWS, AND HORs.e.m.e.n, after Marco Ricci]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 40. HEROIC LANDSCAPE WITH FISHERMAN, COWS AND HORs.e.m.e.n, after Marco Ricci, Detail]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 49. ORNAMENTAL FRAME WITH FLOWERS AND GIRL'S HEAD 59. WOMAN STANDING HOLDING Ap.r.o.n]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 53. BUILDING AND VEGETABLE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 22. THE CRUCIFIXION, after Tintoretto, left sheet]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 22. THE CRUCIFIXION, after Tintoretto, center sheet]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 22. THE CRUCIFIXION, after Tintoretto, right sheet]

_Postscript_

While Jackson had an influence on a small coterie, it did not prolong the life of the color woodcut. In Europe the medium did not survive his disappearance in 1755; no doubt it seemed to later artists intractable and lacking in nuance. The black-and-white woodcut, moreover, went into further decline and was almost entirely disregarded except for the rudest sort of work. Almost a century and a half were to pa.s.s before Gauguin and Munch swept aside old taboos and found exciting new possibilities for color in the woodcut process.

The lack of interest in the color woodcut was also the result of new techniques in the copper-plate media, techniques that could be adapted to color printing. In 1756 J. C. Francois introduced the crayon manner, an etching process that could imitate the effects of chalk and crayon drawings. During the following decades numerous technical variations were developed, the most popular being the pastel manner, the stipple, and the aquatint.

Of these methods only aquatint survived after early years of the 19th century. It was less limited than its companion processes and had wide application in rendering the effect of water-color wash. But color work in this medium, however attractive to a public that appreciated delicacy and charm, did not have ma.s.s appeal. The new audience created by the advancing Industrial Revolution wanted printed pictures of a less subtle type; they preferred imitations of sentimental, ba.n.a.l, story-telling oil paintings with a high, waxy finish. Neither aquatint nor other copper-plate media were suitable for these products, and color lithography did not receive serious attention until the late 1830's. The wood engraving, which had inherited the function of the woodcut and which had greater flexibility in rendering tones and details, became the logical vehicle for the new color picture.

In this situation Jackson suddenly appeared as the pioneer, as the father of printed pictures based upon paintings in oil or water colors.

His intention had been translation rather than imitation and he would have abhorred the feeble new product, but this did not concern his successors-- they were interested only in his technical principles.

Moreover, in their navete, they imagined they were improving on Jackson because their prints were counterfeit paintings while his were not.

The earliest picture printers therefore, used wood engraving. Among them were Frederich W. Gubitz of Berlin, who began the revival about 1815; William Savage[55] of London, a printer who published a book describing his project in 1822; and George Baxter of London, whose work dates from about 1830. All started with chiaroscuro and moved to full color from a large number of wood blocks, although in 1836 Baxter began printing his transparent oil colors over a base of steel engraving reinforced with aquatint. Only Baxter persevered and was rewarded by sensational popular success. His gla.s.sy and trivial prints with their high sweet finish enjoyed a vogue among collectors that lasted into the 20th century. In about 1860, however, he was driven from the market by the rise of a cheaper medium, chromolithography, which was responsible in the next few decades for a universal outpouring of popular bathos. This was picture printing in color geared for the ma.s.s audience.

[Footnote 55: Savage, 1822. Jackson's pioneer work is acknowledged, pp. 15-16.]

It may seem an anticlimax to trace the color woodcut from Jackson to Baxter, and finally to chromolithography, but it is not irrelevant.

Although spurned by the better artists, color had too popular an appeal to be ignored. It was inescapable that Jackson's successful technical procedures should finally be adopted and corrupted in the area of commerce.

Woodcut artists up to Jackson, with few exceptions, had used color for one major purpose, to reproduce drawings in line and tone. By enlarging the conception of the color woodcut Jackson brought the primitive chiaroscuro phase of its history to an end. After him, the chiaroscuro could not be practiced again except as an archaism.[56] The way was open for the modern woodcut, although it was a long time in coming.

[Footnote 56: Only one moderately important chiaroscurist can be mentioned, John Skippe, who worked in England from the 1770's to about 1810.]

The range of Jackson's work in tone and color exceeded that of all previous woodcutters and can be divided as follows: (1) chiaroscuros-- after drawings, after paintings, after his own pen and ink drawings after paintings, interpretations of engravings and etchings, and interpretations of sculpture; and (2) full color-- after paintings in gouache and after his own water colors. In addition he treated pictorial subjects in flat color areas without a key or outline block, a procedure used before him only by the 17th-century Chinese; and he combined burin work with knife cutting.

But Jackson's reputation, in the long perspective, must rest upon his qualities as an artist. He had great distinction as a colorist but lacked originality as a designer and was dependent upon others, for the most part, for basic compositions. As an interpreter of these compositions, however, he was imaginative and forceful. He did not follow the example of most copper plate engravers and reproduce subjects faithfully; his conception of the woodcut as a frank medium precluded exact rendition. Except, possibly, for his first chiaroscuro, he always translated freely, with the aim of making good woodcuts rather than accurate representations of his subjects. Jackson's work after others, in short, was consciously intended as artful approximation. This emphasis on the spirit rather than the letter, together with his novel techniques, often gave his prints a somewhat hybrid character-- an ambiguous look that might serve to explain the uneasy feelings of many critics. But his largeness of feeling is unmistakable, and this is what finally places him among the masters.

The color woodcut is now an important form of printmaking. For this medium in the Western world, Jackson is the main ancestral figure.