Jacob Kainen

“ 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. ”

“ Bewick was an artist, not a reproductive craftsman. His blocks were conceived as original engravings, not as imitations of tones and textures created in another medium. If wood engraving advanced in the direction of commercialism to fill an overwhelming mass need, it was only because he had given it a technical basis. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Later, more mature judgment has made it plain that his contributions as a craftsman outrank his worth as an artist. He was no Holbein, no Botticelli—it is absurd to think of him in such terms—but he did develop a fresh method of handling wood engraving. Because of this he represents a turning point in the development of this medium which led to its rise as the great popular vehicle for illustration in the 19th century. In his hands wood engraving underwent a special transformation; it became a means for rendering textures and tonal values. Earlier work on wood could not do this ”

“ 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. ”

“ Natural tones and textures could be imitated. The engraver was no longer a mere mechanical craftsman cutting around existing lines; special skill was needed to translate tones in terms of white lines of varying thickness and spacing. The opportunity also existed for each engraver to work his own tones in his own manner, to develop a personal system. In short, the medium served the same purpose as copper plate line engraving, with the added virtue that it could be printed together with type in one impression. ”

“ He was the most adventurous and ambitious of earlier woodcutters and a trailblazer in turning his art resolutely in the direction of polychrome.
To 19th century writers on art, from whom we have inherited the bulk of standard catalogs, lexicons, and histories—along with their judgments—Jackson’s work seemed less a break with tradition than a corruption of it. His chiaroscuro woodcuts (prints from a succession of woodblocks composing a single subject in monochrome light and shade) were invariably compared with those of the 16th century Italians and were usually found wanting. ”

“ As a man he remains a shadowy figure. I have traced Jackson’s life as far as the available evidence will permit, quoting from the writings of the artist and his contemporaries at some length to convey an essential flavor, but I have refrained from filling in gaps by straining at conjecture. ”

“ In the useful little État des Arts en Angleterre, published in 1755 by Roquet the enameller,—a treatise so catholic in its scope that it included both cookery and medicine,—there is no reference to the art of wood-engraving. In the Artist's Assistant, to take another book which might be expected to afford some information, even in the fifth edition of 1788, the subject finds no record, even though engraving on metal, etching, mezzotinto-scraping—to say nothing of "painting on silks, sattins, etc." are treated with sufficient detail. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thus the block, when inked and printed, produced facsimile impressions of the drawing in black lines on white paper. Usually an accomplished artist made the drawing, whereas only a skilled craftsman was needed to do the cutting; very few cutters were also capable of making their own drawings.
The wood engraving, on the other hand, started with a section of dense wood of a uniform texture, usually box or maple, and with the end-grain rather than the plank as surface. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Later in the century (there is no need to go into specific detail here) calendered and coated papers were introduced, and wood engraving on these glossy papers became a medium that could reproduce wash drawings, crayon drawings, pencil drawings, and oil paintings so faithfully that all the original textures were apparent. [30] The engraver, concerned entirely with accurate reproduction, became little more than a mechanic who rendered pictures drawn on the blocks by an artist. ”

“ 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
We do not know the results of this appeal. ”

“ When good illustrations [Pg 189] were needed in books and periodicals, copper plate work was almost invariably used, despite the fact that it was more costly, was much slower in execution and printing, and had to be bound in with text in a separate operation. But while the Society of Arts had begun to offer prizes for engraving or cutting on wood (Bewick received such a prize in 1775) the medium was still moribund. Dobson [8] described its status as follows:
During the earlier part of the eighteenth century engraving on wood can scarcely be said to have flourished in England. ”

“ The worship of black-and-white as the highest expression of the graphic arts1 automatically placed printmakers in color in one of two categories: producers of abortive experiments, or purveyors of popular pictures to a frivolous or sentimental public. ”

“ If to later generations his prints had a rather odd look, this was to be expected. Native qualities, even a certain crudeness, were expected from the English who lacked advantages of training and tradition. And Jackson was not only the first English artist who worked in woodcut chiaroscuro, he was virtually the first woodblock artist in England to rise beyond anonymity2 (Elisha Kirkall, as we shall see, cannot positively be identified as a wood engraver) and he was the only one of note until Thomas Bewick arose to prominence about 1780. He was, then, England’s first outstanding woodcutter. ”

“ After the 15th century the woodcut lost its primitive power and became a self-effacing medium for creating facsimile impressions of drawings and for illustrating and decorating books, periodicals, and cheap popular broadsides. At its lowest ebb, in the late 17th century, and in the 18th, it was used to make patterns for workers in embroidery and needlework and to supply outlines for wallpaper designs to be filled in later by “paper-stainers.”
The prime deficiency of the woodcut as an art form lay in the division of labor which the process permitted. Draughtsmen usually drew on the blocks ”

“ Most subjects exist in a few copies only; of some, single impressions alone remain. Others have entirely disappeared.
With a large part of Jackson’s work unknown, his reputation settled into an uneasy obscurity which, it must be granted, has not prevented his work from being collected. The chiaroscuros, especially the Venetian prints, can be found in many leading collections in Europe and the United States, but the full-color sheets after Ricci are excessively rare, particularly in complete sets. ”