Chapter 4

With opportunities for book illustration 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 destitution 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 asserted, 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 Classics_ 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 Titian’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 Titian, 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 Bassano’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 title _Titiani 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 Japanese began to use embossing about 1730. See Reichel, 1926, p. 48.]

The set had occupied him for 4½ 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.

This new set, dedicated to Robert d’Arcy, British Ambassador 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.

The original gouaches have not been located, but from other examples in the same manner, in Buckingham Palace and in the Uffizi, it is plain that Jackson took certain liberties. Ricci’s rather sharp colors were considerably modified and mellowed when they weren’t changed entirely: witness the two sets in different harmonies in the British Museum. Peter A. Wick (1955) believes it most likely that Jackson did not copy specific paintings, and suggests that details from Ricci’s etchings and gouaches were combined and freely amended to create Ricci-like designs.

Having determined his color scheme Jackson cut seven to ten blocks, each designed to bear an individual color which was to combine with others when necessary to form new colors. No outline block was used. To obtain variations from light to dark in each pigment Jackson scraped down the blocks with a knife; he thus lowered the surfaces slightly and created porous textures which would introduce the white paper or the underlying color. Examination of the prints clearly shows granular textures in the light areas. Scraping to lighten impressions was a common procedure in black-and-white printmaking, and was described by both Papillon and Bewick. In addition Jackson no doubt used underlays, that is, small pieces of paper pasted in layers of diminishing size on the backs of the blocks where the color was most intense. The pressure was therefore greatest in the deepest notes and lightest in the scraped parts. The copper plate press enabled Jackson to get good register without making marks on the blocks. The paper was dampened and fastened to the chase at one end. After each impression the next inked block was slid into the chase and printed wet into wet. Problems of register were eliminated because the sheets were held in place at all times, the blocks fitting the same form. No doubt the paper was sprinkled with water on the reverse side after each impression to eliminate shrinking and to keep it soft for printing. This method would explain Jackson’s transparent effects.

Although the Ricci prints were certainly the most ambitious and complexly planned prints of the century, the cutting is crisp and decisive and the effect fresh and unlabored. As in the Venetian set embossing is consciously applied. Most likely Jackson impressed the finished prints, specially redampened for the purpose, with one or two of the uninked blocks. Jackson interpreted Ricci’s qualities with great spirit, and in doing so he liberated the color woodcut from its old conventions. The “true”-color prints he produced in the medium preceded the Japanese, if not the Chinese.[31] In Japan, it must be remembered, simple color printing in rose and green supplanted hand coloring in about 1741, and rudimentary polychrome prints can be dated as early as 1745, but, as Binyon[32] puts it, “it was not until 1764 that the first rather tentative _nishiki-ye_, or complete colour-prints were produced in Yedo, and the long reign of the Primitives came to an end.”

[Footnote 31: Altdorfer’s _Beautiful Virgin of Ratisbon_, about 1520, (B. 51, vol. 8, p. 78) made use of five colors in some impressions (Lippmann describes one with seven colors) but these were used primarily for decorative, not naturalistic purposes.]

[Footnote 32: Laurence Binyon, _A Catalogue of Japanese & Chinese Woodcuts in the British Museum_, London, 1916, p. xx, introduction.]

In making his Ricci prints Jackson sought a method of color printing that would overcome the deficiencies of Jacob Christoph Le Blon’s three-color mezzotint process. Le Blon, a Frenchman born in Germany, had begun experimenting with color printing as early as 1705. His idea was to split the chromatic components of a picture into three basic hues-- blue, red, and yellow-- in gradations of intensity so that varying amounts of color, each on a separate copper plate, could be printed in superimposition to reconstitute the original picture. This was based upon a simplification of Newton’s seven primaries. Later, Le Blon added a fourth, black plate. Incredibly, this is the principle of modern commercial color printing, the only difference being that Le Blon did not have a camera, color filters, and the halftone screen at his disposal and had to make the separations by hand. Le Blon came to London in 1719, produced an enormous number of color prints, published his _Coloritto, or the Harmony of Colouring in Painting_ in a very small edition about 1722 (it is undated), and shortly thereafter failed disastrously. About 1733 he returned to Paris, where he attracted a few followers. Most of his prints have disappeared, only about fifty being known at present.

The idea of full-color printing, then, was in the air, although later, in the _Enquiry_, Jackson took pains to state that he had not been following in the footsteps of the Frenchman, who, he claimed, had made serious mistakes.

The Curious may think that this Tentamine was taken from the celebrated Mr. _le Blond_; I must here take the Liberty to explain the Difference.... Numbers are convinced already, that the printing Copper-plates done with _Fumo_ or _Mezzotinto_, are the most subject to wear out the soonest of any sort of Engraving on that Metal. Had this one Article been properly considered, _le Blond_, must have seen the impossibility of printing any Quantity from his repeated Impressions of Blue, Red, and Yellow Plates, so as to produce only Twenty of these printed Pictures to be alike. This is obvious to every one who has any Knowledge, or has seen the cleaning of Copper-plates after the Colour was laid on; the delicate finishing of the Flesh must infallibly wear out every time the Plate is cleaned, and all the tender light Shadowing of any Colour must soon become white in proportion as the Plate wears. The Nature of Impression being overlooked at first, was the principal Cause that Undertaking came to nothing, notwithstanding the immense Expence the Proprietors were at to have a few imperfect Proofs at best, since it is evident they could be no other. The new invented Method of printing in Colours by Mr. _Jackson_ is under no Apprehension of being wore out so soon.... Whatever has been done by our _English_ Artist, was all printed with Wood Blocks with a strong Relievo, and in Substance sufficient to draw off almost any number that may be required.

What Jackson neglected to mention was the difficulty of repeating transparent color effects with large planks of wood. Few existing impressions match each other and some prints are off register. What saved him was his fine color sense, his brilliance as a woodcutter, and his disinclination to make literal color reproductions.

The work that Jackson left behind became a part of the cultural heritage of Venice, valued on its own account as well as for its connection with the city. Zanetti[33] describes the Venetian set and Zanotto,[34] in his _Guida_ of 1856, urges a visit to the Chiesa Abaziale della Misericordia, which evidently had on permanent exhibition a “perfectly unique collection of woodcuts in various colors by Jackson, quite unmatched.”

[Footnote 33: Zanetti, 1792, pp. 689, 716.]

[Footnote 34: Zanotto, 1856, p. 320, note 3.]

Gallo[35] says that some of Jackson’s blocks found their way to the printing house of the Remondini and were used to strike off new impressions, after which they became the property of the Typografia Pozzato in Bassano. This might explain some of the inferior examples of the Venetian set which could hardly have come from the presses of Jackson or Pasquali.

[Footnote 35: Gallo, 1941, pp. 23-23. Jackson’s blocks are not listed in the Remondini catalog of 1817.]

_England Again: The Wallpaper Venture_

Jackson was married in Venice-- whether to an Italian we do not know-- and when he left the city in 1745 to return to England he took a family along. He mentions “an impoverish’d Family” in the _Essay_, but beyond this we know nothing of his personal life.

As soon as he arrived in England he was invited to work in a calico establishment, where he remained about six years. But making drawings to be printed on cloth failed to give him the scope he required. At the back of his mind was the passion to work with woodblocks in color. This led him to take a bold and hazardous step-- to leave his position and attempt, obviously with little capital, the manufacture of wallpaper, not to please an established taste but to educate the public to a new type of product.

Wallpaper had come into popular use in England in the late 17th century, having been obtained from China by the East India Company. These hand-painted wall hangings, imported at great cost and in small quantities, were correspondingly expensive. The subjects were gay and fanciful-- birds, fans, Chinese kiosks, pagodas, and flowers. Highly desired because they offered an escape from the heavy grandeur of the Baroque style, they were subsequently imitated by assembly-line methods. They fitted naturally into the developing _rocaille_ style (corrupted into Rococo outside of France), and it is not surprising that they were also produced extensively in Paris. In England these imitations, which formed a substitute for expensive velvet and damask hangings, completely dominated the wallpaper field.

The first notice of Jackson’s venture appeared in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ of February 1752.[36] A letter signed “Y. D.” praised the editor “Sylvanus Urban” for attempting to revive the art of cutting on wood. It mentioned that this art was in decline for more than a century, but noted that--

Two of our countrymen, _E. Kirkall_ and _J. B. Jackson_, ought to be exempted from this general charge; the former having a few years ago introduced the _Chiaro Oscuro_ of _Hugo de Carpi_ into England, though he met with no extraordinary encouragement for his ingenuity; and the art had died with him had not the latter attempted to revive it, but with less encouragement than his predecessor. _Mr. Jackson_, however, has lately invented a new method of printing paper hangings from blocks, which is very ornamental, and exceeds the common method of paper-staining (as it is termed) by the delicacy of his drawings, the novelty of his designs, and the masterly arrangement of his principal figures.

[Footnote 36: Vol. 22, pp. 77-79.]

The next notice appeared in the _London Evening Post_ of April 30-May 2, 1752:

New invented PAPER HANGINGS, printed in Oyl, which prevents the fading or changing of the Colours; as also Landscapes printed in Colours, by J. B. Jackson, Reviver of the Art of printing in Chiaro Oscuro, are to be had at Dunbar’s Warehouse in Aldermanbury, London; or Mr. Gibson’s, Bookseller, opposite the St. Alban’s Tavern in Charles-street near St. James’s-Square, and no where else.

Several months afterwards, in the September 1752 issue of _Gentleman’s Magazine_, publication of the _Enquiry into the Origins of Printing in Europe_ was announced.

The _Enquiry_ is an odd book. It combines rewritten versions of two Jackson manuscripts, a study of the origins of printing in Europe and an autobiographical journal covering, we suppose, the years from about 1725 on. The writer, in his introduction, says that he had been attracted by the two notices mentioned and went to see Jackson, whom he already knew by reputation. As a “Lover of Art” he considered it his duty to acquaint the public with Jackson’s ideas concerning the origins of printing. These ideas, he felt, were an important contribution. After devoting half the little book to a rambling account of this subject, including a short history of woodcutting from Dürer onward, the author suddenly shifts to the journal. It is regrettable that he condensed it because we do not know what was left out. It is possible that much autobiographical information was excluded, as well as a picture of woodcutters and woodcutting of the time. The book concludes with the statement that Jackson intended to print in October of that year (1752) a paper hanging in two sheets after an original painting “by _F. Simonnetta_ of _Parma_”[37] representing the battle fought near that city in 1738.

[Footnote 37: There is little doubt that Jackson meant Francesco Simonini (1686-1753), a painter of battle subjects who was born in Parma and lived in Venice in the 1740’s.]

This print was to be in full color, 3 feet 6 inches long by 2 feet high, and was to serve as a specimen for a series of four of the same size, the others being “History, Pictures and Landscapes.” They were to be done by subscription:

No Money will be required of the Subscribers till the Prints are finished, and only at the Delivery. It is to be hoped the Curious and the Public will encourage this Undertaking, by a Man who has spent the greatest Part of his Life in searching after and improving an Art, believed by all to be lost, and has restored it to the Condition we now see it in his Works.

The only known copy of this battle picture, made from about seven blocks, is in the Print Room of the British Museum. It is a magnificent piece. Probably nothing with this breadth of handling had ever been done in woodcut before. The color is grave and beautifully harmonized, although the paper has deteriorated and the colors have darkened somewhat. The blocks were cut with ardor, almost fury; everything is brought to life with masterly assurance. Martin Hardie, who made the only previous comment on this print, which he could only surmise was Jackson’s, says:[38] “Jackson’s supreme achievement is a large battle scene, with wonderful masses of rich colour superbly blended, reminiscent of Velasquez in breadth, in dignity, and in glory of tone.”

[Footnote 38: Hardie, 1906, p. 23.]