Chapter 3

J. Jackson, an Englishman who lived in Paris for a few years, might have perfected himself in wood engraving, which he had learned, as I said previously on page 323, from an English painter, if he had been willing to follow my advice. As soon as he arrived in Paris he came to me asking for work; I gave him some things to execute for a few months in order to allow him to live, for which he repaid me with ingratitude by making a duplicate of a floral ornament of my design which he offered, before delivering the block to me, to the person for whom it was to be made. From the reproaches I received when the matter was discovered, I refused, naturally, to employ him further. Then he went the rounds of the printing houses in Paris, and was forced to offer his work ready-made and without order, almost for nothing, and many printers, profiting by his distress, supplied themselves amply with his cuts. He had acquired a certain insipid and limited taste, little above the mosaics on snuffboxes, similar to other mediocre engravers, with which he surcharged his works. His mosaics, however delicately engraved, are always lacking in effect, and show the engraver’s patience and not his talent; for the remainder of the cut has only delicate lines without tints or gradations of light and shade, and lack the contrast necessary to make a striking effect. Engravings of this sort, however deficient in this regard, are admired by printers of vulgar taste who foolishly believe that they closely resemble copper plate engraving, and that they give better impressions than those of a picturesque type having a greater variety of tints.

Jackson, having been forced by poverty to leave Paris, where he could find nothing further to do, traveled in France; then, disgusted with his art, he followed a painter to Rome, after which he went to Venice, where, I am told, he married, and then returned to England, his native country.

Whether or not Jackson was unethical he was certainly an active competitor and many printers “supplied themselves amply with his cuts.” He must have produced an enormous amount of work during his five years in Paris because John Smith, in his _Printers Grammar_,[18] says that Jackson’s cuts were used so widely and for so many years in Paris that they replaced the fashion of using “flowers,” or typographical ornaments, and that this style did not come into vogue again until the cuts were completely worn down through use.

[Footnote 18: Smith, 1755, p. 136.]

This statement is not entirely true, but it is probable that Jackson’s woodcuts, more broadly executed than the typical French products, outlasted all others of the 1725-30 period. They were consistently re-used, and appeared, as far as they can be traced, well into the 1780’s.[19]

[Footnote 19: See cuts in _Dissertatiumeula quodlibetariis disputationibus_ of C. L. Berthollet, Paris, 1780, and _Voyage littéraire de la Grèce_, of de Guys, 1783.]

Elsewhere in the _Traité_, however, Papillon has a good word for Jackson’s abilities:[20]

Jackson, of whom I have already spoken, also engraved in chiaroscuro; I have a little landscape by him which is very nicely done.

[Footnote 20: P. 415. This may be the print formerly in Dresden but lost during the war.]

It was inevitable that Papillon and Jackson should clash. The Frenchman’s notion of woodcutting was influenced, as we have seen, by copper plate engraving; he wanted, by incredible minuteness of cutting, to achieve approximately the same results. This was in keeping with the delicate French _rocaille_ tradition on which Papillon was nurtured; to him any other contemporary style of book decoration was evidence of bad taste. Jackson, on his part, felt that this approach violated the essentially broad, vigorous nature of the woodcut and, in addition, made excessive demands on the printer. Since this impoverished beginner, and an Englishman at that, refused to take his earnest advice or to fall into the prevailing style, Papillon was enraged. After all, Jackson was working as an employee. But Papillon was not entirely blind. In a number of places in the _Traité_ he made reference to other woodcutters who were working in Jackson’s style, and he recorded some of the works the Englishman illustrated during his five years in Paris.

Jackson’s blossoming out as a maker of wallpaper after his return to England and his brash claims in this connection in the _Essay_, must also have irked Papillon, who knew the field as an expert; his father in 1688 had set up the first large printing house in France for wall hangings, and after his death in 1723 Papillon had inherited it. In 1740, he sold the business to the widow Langlois, but he had run the shop during Jackson’s residence in Paris and his former employee no doubt had learned a great deal by observing its operation. Yet here more than twenty years later was the upstart Englishman again, venturing into wallpaper manufacturing with an air of moral superiority, attacking all other products as unworthy. Jackson’s ridiculing of the Chinese style must have been particularly galling since Papillon and his father had specialized in producing such papers. These were much better than comparable English work, but Jackson, confining himself to English products, had attacked the whole style without making distinctions.

According to the _Enquiry_ (pages 32-55 of this book will be drawn upon for the ensuing details of Jackson’s career), M. Annison, Director of the Imprimerie Royale, for whom Jackson produced many cuts, introduced him to Count de Caylus, collector, connoisseur, etcher, and the leading spirit in French engraving at the time. De Caylus had, in 1725, undertaken to direct the reproduction of drawings and paintings in the best French collections.[21] Pierre Crozat, the famous collector, sponsored the publication of this ambitious work.

[Footnote 21: _Recueil d’estampes d’après les plus beaux tableaux et d’après les plus beaux dessins qui sont en France dans le cabinet du Roy, dans celui de M. le Duc d’Orléans et dans d’autres cabinets, divisé suivant les différentes écoles._ Paris, 1729-42, 2 vols., 182 plates. Often called the _Cabinet Crozat_, it was reprinted by Basan in 1763 with aquatint tones by François Charpentier replacing the woodblock tints.]

The drawings were reproduced in chiaroscuro while the paintings were rendered in black-and-white by a corps of engravers. The chiaroscuros were made by combining an etched outline, usually by de Caylus or P. P. A. Robert, with superimposed tones, mainly in green or buff, from one or two woodblocks cut in most cases by Nicolas Le Sueur, or under his direction. This was not a new printing method. Hubert (not Hendrick) Goltzius had first employed it in a set of Roman emperors after antique medallions in 1557.[22] To reproduce drawings by Raphael, Parmigianino, and himself, Abraham Bloemart, as well as Frederick and Cornelius Bloemart in the early 1600’s, had used this combination extensively, and as described earlier, p. 11, Kirkall had used it between 1722 and 1724.[23] The combination method produced rather feeble prints that lacked the vigor of straight woodblock chiaroscuro. The etched outline was thin and ineffective, and the tints were pallid so as not to overpower the drawing. Only Abraham Bloemart’s prints in this style were convincing, although Kirkall’s chiaroscuros, in their soft, over-modeled way, had individuality. But the _Cabinet Crozat_ lacked distinction entirely. The chiaroscuros had a mechanical look, a fact not surprising when we remember that they were produced by a team of engravers-- assembled, as it were, from several hands working in different media. The best prints were a few chiaroscuros made entirely from woodblocks by Nicolas Le Sueur, although these were also rather tepid, no doubt to harmonize with the rest of the work.

[Footnote 22: _Imperatorum imagines_, Antwerp, 1557. The woodblocks were cut by Josse Geitleugen.]

[Footnote 23: In the _Enquiry_ (p. 31) Jackson asserts that Kirkall’s tints were made from copper plates, not woodblocks.]

Jackson tells us that he worked on some tint blocks, first from a drawing by Giulio Romano and later from a drawing by Raphael, _Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter_, the original _modello_ for one of the famous tapestry cartoons. Count de Caylus, he says, liked the work and wanted to employ him further on the project, but Crozat rejected him flatly. De Caylus, according to Jackson, was embarrassed and distressed and offered recompense for the lost time and labor, but Jackson, not to be outdone in generosity by a nobleman, refused, explaining that the honor of knowing the Count and receiving his approbation more than made up for his lost effort.

Vincent Le Sueur objected to the combination method and withdrew early from the project. Possibly Jackson, who also disliked this method and was not known for his discretion, was considered by Crozat to be a disruptive element. Possibly his style of cutting was not retiring enough for Crozat’s tasteful French notion of chiaroscuro. This project, in any case, aroused the Englishman’s interest in the process. _Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter_, after Raphael, made about 1727, was probably Jackson’s first chiaroscuro woodcut. No doubt he produced it on his own and offered it as a plate for the publication, perhaps at the time he was commissioned to cut the tint blocks to be used in combination with de Caylus’ etching of this subject.

With both Papillon and the powerful Crozat against him, Jackson was finished in Paris. De Caylus urged him to go to Italy. Accordingly, in April 1730, he left Paris in the company of John Lewis, an English painter, and set out for Rome, where he expected to continue his studies in drawing and deepen his knowledge of art.

Jackson’s style was still being formed during his Paris period. Confined for the most part to initial letters, headbands, and tailpieces, his work differed from contemporary French cuts only in its technical handling, which was firmer and broader. Little of a more creative nature came his way, and the Paris stay therefore served as a useful interim during which he became adept in his craft. The necessity for keeping himself alive by cutting on wood developed his powers of invention and his facility: he became a remarkably rapid and skillful cutter. Jackson gathered strength in Paris, but it was in Venice that he really came to maturity as an artist.

_Venice: The Heroic Effort_

After leaving Paris, Jackson and Lewis journeyed to Marseilles, 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 pass 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 Farsetti, 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 Farsetti.

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 asserted 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.

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.]

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 title 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 Titian. 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 spaced, 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 association 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.