Chapter 5

There were competitors in London, among them Matthias Darley, who produced papers in the Chinese style; Thomas Bromwich, who was patronized by Walpole; and Robert Dunbar, Jr., of Aldermanbury, who in addition sold Jackson’s papers. They lacked both Jackson’s gifts and his unreasonable standards but they produced more generally acceptable wallpaper with greater facility. These competitors did not work in oil colors, like Jackson. Transparent tints were too difficult to control, especially when applied with inking balls (composition rollers did not come into use until well after 1800), and effects were too heavy. They used distemper-- powdered color mixed with glue and water, with chalk added to give body. This was sometimes applied with woodblock or stencil but most often it was simply painted in by hand over a blockprinted outline. Often the painting was done directly on the wall after the paper was hung. These wallpapers were weak when examined critically, but nobody worried as long as a light bright pastel effect was obtained. Jackson’s vigorous drawing and woodcutting were out of place in this field. They were, like his tonal exactitude that made holes in the wall, a distraction and an offense against interior decoration.

Jackson’s business, therefore, did not prosper. In a last effort to stir up public interest he published, in 1754, his well-known little book, _An Essay on the Invention of Engraving and Printing in Chiaro Oscuro_, illustrated with eight prints in “proper colours.” It sold for two shillings and sixpence. The style was rather florid but his arguments were presented with such vigor that it is easy to see why critics have found it difficult to refrain from quoting at length. The main body of text is only eight pages long, with an additional eight pages of subsidiary descriptive material attached to the pictures.

On the title page appeared his favorite passage from Pascal, used previously on the title page of the _Enquiry_: “Ceux qui sont capables d’inventer sont rares: ceux qui n’inventent point sont en plus grand nombre, et par conséquent les plus forts.” The first few pages of the _Essay_ enlarge on this theme:

It has been too generally the Fate of those who set themselves to the Inventing any Thing that requires Talents in the Discovery, to apply all their Faculties, exhaust their Fortune, and waste their whole Time in bringing that to Perfection, which when obtained, Age, Death, or Want of sufficient Supplies, obliges them to relinquish, and to yield all the Advantages which their Hopes had flattered them with, and which had supported their Spirits during their Fatigues and Difficulties, to others; and thus leave behind them an impoverish’d Family incapable to carry on their Parent’s Design, and too often complaining of the projecting Genius of that Father who has ruin’d them, tho’ he has enriched the Nation to which he belonged, and to which of Consequence he was a laudable Benefactor.

He proceeds in this bitter vein for a time, then brings into the open the main purpose of the book:

Another Reason perhaps is, that the Artist being totally engaged in the Pursuit of his Discovery, has but little Time to apply to the Lovers and Encouragers of Art for their Patronage, Protection, and Supplies necessary for the carrying on such a Design, or he has not Powers to set the Advantage which would result from it in a true Light; nor communicate in Words what he clearly conceived in Idea: for certainly there are Men enough, who from the mere Desire of increasing their Wealth, would give him that Assistance, which, like the artificial Heat of a Greenhouse, would bring that Art to a Ripeness, which would otherwise languish and die under the Coldness of the first Designer, and which in this Union of Riches and Invention would yield mutual Advantage to both.

There are besides this amongst the Great, without Doubt, many who 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.]