would gladly lend their Patronage to rising Arts, if they knew their
Authors....
He gives as example the Duke of Cumberland, who had just sponsored a
tapestry plant at Fulham, and follows with an outline of the honorable
traditions of the woodcut, pointing out that Dürer, Titian, Salviati,
Campagnola, and other painters drew their work on woodblocks to be cut
by woodcutters, and adds that “even _Andrea Vincentino_ did not think it
in the least a Dishonour, though a Painter, to grave on Wood the
Landscapes of _Titian_.” He builds up to the statement that Raphael and
Parmigianino drew on woodblocks to be cut in chiaroscuro by Ugo da
Carpi.
After having said all this, it may seem highly improper to give to
Mr. _Jackson_ [he speaks of himself throughout in the third person]
the Merit of inventing this Art; but let me be permitted to say,
that an Art recovered is little less than an Art invented. The Works
of the former Artists remain indeed; but the Manner in which they
were done, is entirely lost: the inventing then the Manner is really
due to this latter Undertaker, since no Writings, or other Remains,
are to be found by which the Method of former Artists can be
discover’d, or in what Manner they executed their works; nor, in
Truth, has the _Italian_ Method since the Beginning of the 16th
Century been attempted by any one except Mr. _Jackson_.
We cannot help concluding that Jackson was falsifying here. Taking
advantage of the public’s ignorance, he was puffing up his historical
importance in order to sell wallpaper. If the _cognoscenti_ complained
that he had buried the chiaroscurists after da Carpi, he always had the
explanation that others did not work in the Italian style, which he
neglected to describe. Jackson knew what he was doing; he was not as
ignorant of art history as Hardie and Burch have surmised, although it
is true that he was not always certain as to dates, since he believed
Andreani worked as a contemporary of da Carpi. In the _Enquiry_,
published only two years earlier, he had shown familiarity with the
prints of Goltzius, Coriolano, Businck, Nicolas and Vincent Le Sueur,
Moretti, and Zanetti, all of whom had worked to some extent in the
Italian manner.
Some writers have reacted strongly to this paragraph. Losing their sense
of proportion, they have been led to the conclusion that Jackson was
little better than a charlatan and that his work as a whole reflected
his low ethics. In some instances his culpability has been magnified:
Bénézit has even charged him with claiming to have invented color
printing.
The worst result of Jackson’s insistence on re-inventing the Italian
manner was that it made a major issue of what was at best a minor honor.
It minimized such technical contributions as the following, which did
not follow traditional recipes:
... Mr. _Jackson_ has invented ten positive Tints in _Chiaro
Oscuro_; whereas Hugo di Carpi knew but four; all of which can be
taken off by four Impressions only.
This technical system was used for the Venetian chiaroscuros, the
portrait of Algernon Sidney after Justus Verus, and others. He did not
mention that he needed a greater range of tones because he was working
after oil paintings, not drawings. The introduction of full color from a
series of blocks to translate water colors is also mentioned in the
_Essay_, but with no greater emphasis than in the _Enquiry_. Since his
wallpaper was to be done in color as well as in chiaroscuro, and since
the _Essay_ included four plates in color, it is astonishing that
Jackson failed to make stronger claims for his originality in this
development.
He proceeded to describe his plan to replace wallpapers in the Chinese
style with his papers, which, he stated, would have no “...gay glaring
Colours in broad Patches of red, green, yellow, blue &c ... [with] no
true Judgment belonging to it ... Nor are there Lions leaping from Bough
to Bough like Cats, Houses in the Air, Clouds and Sky upon the
Ground....”
He proposed, instead, to use as subjects many of the famous statues of
antiquity; the landscapes of Salvator Rosa, Claude Lorrain, Poussin,
Berghem, Wouwerman, the views of Canaletto, Pannini--
Copies of the Pictures of all the best Painters of the _Italian_,
_French_ and _Flemish_ Schools, the fine sculptur’d Vases of the
Ancients which are now remaining; in short, every Bird that flies,
every Figure that moves upon the Surface of the Earth from the
Insect to the human; and every Vegetable that springs from the
Ground, whatever is of Art or Nature, may be introduced into this
Design of fitting up and furnishing Rooms, with all the Truth of
Drawing, Light, and Shadow, and great Perfection of Colouring.
This vast gallery of art and nature was to be printed in “Colours
softening into each other, with Harmony and Repose....”
Even if we feel that Jackson was building up his project to attract
attention, or that he was intoxicated by the idea of creating art on
such a grand scale, there is still something wrong in his conceiving it
in terms of wallpaper. What is certain is that Jackson was desperately
anxious to create color prints. In the absence of art patrons, wallpaper
was his only excuse for continuing as an artist. As a business venture
it was absurd, even tragic. There is good reason to believe that Jackson
lacked capital and rented the quarters for his business: his name does
not appear in the Poor Rate Book of that period in the Borough of
Battersea.
From a certain standpoint, this excursion by Jackson into wallpapers
featuring Roman ruins and classical antiquity appeared to come at an
appropriate time. Marco Ricci’s paintings as well as the somewhat later
work of Pannini and Zuccarelli, and Guardi’s early ruin pieces, were
already known. Ricci had visited England from 1710 to 1716. Zuccarelli
had come twice, once in 1742 and again in 1751 to stay until 1773,
becoming a foundation member of the Royal Academy; his classical
landscapes with their glib charm had a comparatively good reception. But
the strongest influence was undoubtedly that of Piranesi, whose powerful
etchings brought to life as never before the ravaged stones of Imperial
Rome and the _Campagna_. Their effect was widespread and electrifying,
although it was not until the 1760’s that they developed their full
force as an influence on English architecture and furniture design, and
came to supersede the Palladian style brought to England by Inigo Jones
at the beginning of the 17th century.
Jackson was too early; public taste was not yet ready for picturesque
landscape or antique forms in wallpaper. But the style became dominant
in the latter 18th century, particularly in England and France, and was
also exported to America. While it is difficult to estimate the degree
of Jackson’s influence in this development, we know that no scenic
papers can be dated before the Ricci prints, or before Jackson’s
wallpaper venture. Oman[39] comments:
The use of wall-paper to imitate large architectural designs dates,
as we have seen, from the days of J. B. Jackson. During the
remainder of the century this style was used almost exclusively for
decoration of the halls and staircases of great houses.
[Footnote 39: Oman, 1929, p. 33.]
These papers covered rooms with landscape panoramas or with landscapes
in Rococo scroll frames, relieved by decorative panels with busts,
statuettes, and floral ornaments. As in preceding work, they were
usually painted in opaque water colors. Most of the landscapes were
loose transcriptions of designs by Pannini, Vernet, Lancret and other
painters of architectural, scenic, and pastoral subjects. The treatment
was generalized and superficial, the touch light and detached.
In this approach to wallpaper we see the basic ideas of Jackson, but
with more emphasis on charm and elegance. Ironically, as years passed
and original sources grew obscure, it became the tendency to attribute
scenic papers in great houses to Jackson.[40] If he was a failure as a
pioneer in the field, he remained its most highly prized legend.
[Footnote 40: An excellent description of the papers of this type
imported to America is given by Edna Donnell in _Metropolitan
Museum Studies 1932_, vol. 4, pp. 77-108.]
The _Essay_ continued with a criticism of the current taste in
wallpaper. Jackson enlarged on the lack of discrimination of persons who
would prefer popular papers to his.
It seems, also, as if there was great Reason to suspect wherever one
sees such preposterous Furniture, that the Taste in Literature of
that Person who directed it was very deficient, and that it would
prefer _Tom D’Urfy_ to _Shakespear_, _Sir Richard Blackmore_ to
_Milton_, _Tate_ to _Homer_, an _Anagrammatist_ to _Virgil_,
_Horace_, or any other Writer of true Wit, either Ancient or Modern.
He added that his prints, made in oil colors, would be permanent
“whereas in that done with Water-Colours, in the common Way, Six Months
makes a very visible Alteration in all that preposterous Glare, which
makes its whole Merit....”
The _Essay_ has eight plates, four of ancient statues in chiaroscuro and
four of plants, animals, and buildings, in probably six colors. They
were hastily done and no doubt had a rather fresh charm when published,
but unfortunately the oil in the pigments was inferior, and every print
in the book has darkened and yellowed badly. The prints and neighboring
pages are heavily spotted and stained. This book which should have been
his vindication became instead an argument for his lack of merit,
especially to those who were not familiar with his other work.
We do not know how large a working force Jackson had or how many of the
projected plates he planned to assign to helpers or to carry out
himself. Some of the decorative borders from four blocks, blue, red,
yellow, and gray-green, he undoubtedly made and printed himself. They
are heavy and rather fruity in effect but are incisively drawn and cut.
Also bearing Jackson’s stamp are some ornamental frames with fruit and
flowers in the same full range of colors.
An album ascribed to him, in the collection of the Victoria and Albert
Museum, contains drawings of flowers, foliage, details of ornament and
hand-colored designs, and a proof of the woodcut for the title page to
the _Suetonius_ of 1738. Five of the drawings are signed or initialed by
Jackson, with dates from 1740 to 1753. The designs, which might have
been intended for calico or wallpaper, are poorly done and not at all in
his style. The drawings are competent but cannot definitely be
considered his, notwithstanding the signatures, since we do not know
Jackson’s handwriting from other sources. The most that can be said for
this album is that it probably comes from his workshop.
While producing wallpaper, Jackson still made efforts to attract
sponsors for full editions of his earlier chiaroscuros. The _Woman
Meditating_ was dedicated to the Antiquarian Society of London. _Christ
Giving the Keys to St. Peter_, rejected by Crozat, we assume, was
dedicated to Thomas Hollis, whom Jackson may have met in Venice. And the
_Venus and Cupid with a Bow_ was inscribed to Thomas Brand, lifelong
companion of Hollis who later added to his name the latter’s patronymic.
The _Algernon Sidney_ has no dedication, but since Hollis was a Sidney
specialist and edited the first one-volume edition of his works in 1769,
there is a strong likelihood that the print had some connection with
this liberal gentleman. Jackson made it either in Venice just before he
left, or in England shortly after his arrival.
Robert Dunbar, Jr., who had inherited the wallpaper manufactory on his
father’s death, went out of business late in 1754. In his possession was
a quantity of Jackson’s papers, for which he was the main outlet. With
this backlog of papers on hand, and no large distributor, Jackson’s
venture collapsed. This happened shortly after the publication of the
_Essay_, and its author was never to have the opportunity to carry out
his grandiose plans.
Jackson appealed to Hollis, who wrote to his former mentor, Dr. John
Ward, professor of rhetoric at Gresham College and the head of a society
founded by noblemen and gentlemen for the encouragement of learning:[41]
Dear Sir!-- Do Me the Favour to accept these four prints of
Jackson’s. They are no where sold, & will soon be scarce. When You
consider their Merit, I am confident You will lament the hard Fate
of the ingenious Artist; who, at this Time, in his old age, & in his
own Country is unprotected unnoticed, and can difficultly support
Himself against immediate distress & Ruin.
I am, with great Respect,
Dear Sir!
Your obliged affect humble Servant
T. Hollis
Bedford Street, February 10, 1755
[Footnote 41: British Museum Add. mss. 6210.]
We do not know the results of this appeal. In any case Jackson seems to
have faded out as an artist. Little is known of his subsequent career up
to the time more than twenty years later, when Bewick mentions meeting
him in advanced age. In 1761 he made a drawing of Salisbury Cathedral
for Edward Eaton, “bookseller at Sarum,” for a line engraving dedicated
by Eaton to the Lord Bishop of Winchester. This large view included
figures in the foreground in an attempt to give animation to the scene.
Unfortunately the engraver, John Fougeron, was little more than an
amateur. His execution was feeble and mechanical: Jackson’s drawing
suffered so badly that its quality cannot be determined. This print was
copied on a smaller scale in a steel engraving by J. B. Swaine,
published by J. B. Nichols & Son in 1843, but it was hardly an
improvement.
Bewick’s recollections of Jackson, written about forty years after their
meeting in Newcastle, imply that Jackson stayed in that city for a
period. The Town Clerk’s Office, however, has no record of his
residence. The following passage from Bewick’s _Memoir_ is the last
evidence[42] bearing on Jackson:
Several impressions from duplicate or triplicate blocks, printed in
this way, of a very large size, were also given to me, as well as a
drawing of the press from which they were printed, many years ago,
by Jean Baptiste Jackson, who had been patronised by the King of
France; but, whether these prints had been done with the design of
embellishing the walls of houses in that country, I know not. They
had been taken from paintings of eminent old masters, and were
mostly Scripture pieces. They were well drawn, and perhaps correctly
copied from the originals, yet in my opinion none of them looked
well. Jackson left Newcastle quite enfeebled with age, and, it was
said, ended his days in an asylum, under the protecting care of Sir
Gilbert Elliot, Bart., at some place on the border near the Teviot,
or on Tweedside.
[Footnote 42: Bewick, 1925, pp. 213-214.]
If Bewick was correct in reporting that Jackson died while under the
protection of Sir Gilbert Elliot, probably in a Poor Law institution, it
is unlikely that the date could have been much later than 1777, the year
in which Sir Gilbert died. This would place the meeting of both artists
shortly before this time, when Bewick was in his early twenties (he was
born in 1753). Sir Gilbert lived in Minto House, Roxburghshire,
Scotland, but no evidence can be found for the supposition that Jackson
died in the vicinity. No obituary has been discovered. The record of
Jackson’s death, if it exists, probably lies in a parish register
somewhere on the Scottish border.
_Critical Opinion_
In most histories of prints it was considered sufficient to note that
certain artists worked in woodcut chiaroscuro; the quality of such work
was rarely discussed. But Jackson was an exception: something about his
prints aroused critics to defense or attack. The cleavage is absolute,
strange for one who was presumably a mere reproductive artist. Nothing
could show more clearly the unsettled nature of Jackson’s standing than
a sampling of these opinions.
Horace Walpole in a letter, dated June 12, 1753, to Sir Horace Mann
describing the furnishings in Strawberry Hill, commented:[43]
The bow window below leads into a little parlour hung with a
stone-colour Gothic paper and Jackson’s Venetian prints, which I
could never endure while they pretended, infamous as they are, to be
after Titian, &c., but when I gave them this air of barbarous
bas-reliefs, they succeeded to a miracle; it is impossible at first
sight not to conclude that they contain the history of Attila or
Tottila done about the very era.
[Footnote 43: _The Letters of Horace Walpole_, ed. Toynbee, 1903,
vol. 3, p. 166.]
Von Heinecken[44] says they are “in the manner of Hugo da Carpi but much
inferior in execution.” But Huber, Rost, and Martini[45] noted Jackson’s
independent approach:
Jackson’s prints, which are certainly not without merit, are in
general less sought after by collectors than they deserve. His style
is original and is concerned entirely with broad effects.
[Footnote 44: Von Heinecken, 1771, p. 94.]
[Footnote 45: Huber, Rost, and Martini, 1808, vol. 9, pp.
121-123.]
Baverel[46] also had a high opinion of Jackson’s work. Describing the
Venetian prints, he says that Jackson “had a skillful and daring attack,
and it is regrettable that he did not produce more work.” Nagler’s[47]
criticism typifies the academic preconceptions of some writers on the
subject of chiaroscuro:
Jackson’s works are not praiseworthy throughout in drawing, and also
he was not thoroughly able to apply the principles of chiaroscuro
correctly.... Yet we have several valuable prints from Jackson....
[Footnote 46: Baverel, 1807, vol. 1, pp. 341-342.]
[Footnote 47: Künstler-Lexicon, op. cit.]
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 space to expounding Jackson’s
deficiencies than to discussing the work of any other woodcut artist,
even Dürer or da Carpi.
[Footnote 49: Linton, 1889, p. 214. The second print mentioned is
after Titian, not Veronese.]
[Footnote 50: Duplessis, 1880, pp. 314-315. Duplessis, who was
_conservateur-adjoint_ in the Cabinet des Estampes of the
Bibliothèque 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. Friedländer[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: Friedländer, 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, /
banal, story-telling oil paintings”.]
[Illustration:
1. CHRIST GIVING THE KEYS TO ST. PETER, after Raphael]
[Illustration:
2. VENUS AND CUPID WITH A BOW, after Parmigianino]
[Illustration:
5. WOMAN MEDITATING (ST. THAIS?), after etching by Parmigianino]
[Illustration:
13. DESCENT FROM THE CROSS, after Rembrandt]
[Illustration:
43. HEROIC LANDSCAPE WITH WATERING PLACE, RIDERS, AND OBELISK,
after Marco Ricci]
[Illustration:
40. HEROIC LANDSCAPE WITH FISHERMAN, COWS, AND HORSEMEN,
after Marco Ricci]
[Illustration:
40. HEROIC LANDSCAPE WITH FISHERMAN, COWS AND HORSEMEN,
after Marco Ricci, Detail]
[Illustration:
49. ORNAMENTAL FRAME WITH FLOWERS AND GIRL’S HEAD
59. WOMAN STANDING HOLDING APRON]
[Illustration:
53. BUILDING AND VEGETABLE]
[Illustration:
22. THE CRUCIFIXION, after Tintoretto, left sheet]
[Illustration:
22. THE CRUCIFIXION, after Tintoretto, center sheet]
[Illustration:
22. THE CRUCIFIXION, after Tintoretto, right sheet]
_Postscript_