John Baptist Jackson Part 1

John Baptist Jackson.

by Jacob Kainen.

_PREFACE_

John Baptist Jackson has received little recognition as an artist. This is not surprising if we remember that originality in a woodcutter was not considered a virtue until quite recently. We can now see that he was more important than earlier critics had realized. 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. The exasperated tone of many critics may have been the result of an uneasy feeling that he was being judged by the wrong standards. The purpose of this monograph, aside from providing the first full-length study of Jackson and his prints, is to examine these standards. The traditions of the woodcut and the color print will therefore receive more attention than might be expected, but I feel that such treatment is essential if we are to appreciate Jackson's contribution, in which technical innovation is a major element.

Short accounts of Jackson have appeared in almost all standard dictionaries of painters and engravers and in numerous historical surveys, but these have been based upon meager evidence. A fraction of his work was usually known and details of his life were, and still are, spa.r.s.e. Later writers interpreting the comments of their predecessors have repeated as fact much that was conjecture. The picture of Jackson that has come down to us, therefore, is unclear and fragmentary.

If he does not emerge from this study completely accounted for from birth to death, it has not been because of lack of effort. Biographical data for his early and late life-- about fifty years in all-- are almost entirely missing despite years of diligent search. 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.

While details of his life are vague, sufficient information is at hand to reconstruct his personality clearly enough. After all, Jackson wrote a book and was quoted at length in another. A contemporary fellow-pract.i.tioner wrote about him with considerable feeling. These and other sources give a good indication of the artist's character.

The man we have to deal with had something excessive about him; he was headstrong, tactless, impractical, enormously energetic, a prodigious worker, a conceiver of grandiose projects, and a relentless hunter of patrons. He was at home with his social superiors and had some pretentions to literary culture, he had a coa.r.s.e gift for the vivid phrase in writing, and his tastes in art ran to the cla.s.sic and heroic.

This study includes an ill.u.s.trated catalog of Jackson's chiaroscuros and color prints. Previous catalogs, notably those of Nagler, Le Blanc, and h.e.l.ler, have listed no more than twenty-five works. The present catalog more than triples this number.

To acknowledge fully the a.s.sistance given by museum curators, librarians, archivists, and scholars on both sides of the Atlantic would necessitate a very long list of names. However, I wish especially to thank Mr. Peter A. Wick of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, who has been generous enough to allow me to read his well-doc.u.mented paper on Jackson's Ricci prints; Mr. A. Hyatt Mayor of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Mr. Carl Zigrosser of the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Miss Anna C. Hoyt and Mrs. Anne B. Freedberg of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Dr. Jakob Rosenberg and Miss Ruth S. Magurn of the Fogg Art Museum; Mr.

Karl Kup of the New York Public Library; Miss Elizabeth Mongan of the Rosenwald Collection, National Gallery of Art; Miss Una E. Johnson of the Brooklyn Museum; Mr. Gustave von Groschwitz of the Cincinnati Art Museum; and Dr. Philip W. Bishop of the U.S. National Museum, Smithsonian Inst.i.tution.

I am particularly grateful to curators of European collections, who have been uniformly generous in their a.s.sistance. Special thanks are due Mr.

J. A. Gere of the British Museum and Mr. James Laver of the Victoria and Albert Museum, who have gone to considerable trouble to acquaint me with their great collections. Others whose help must be particularly noted are Mr. Peter Murray, Courtauld Inst.i.tute of Art, University of London; Mme. R. Maquoy-Hendrickx of the Bibliotheque Royale de Belgique, Brussels; Dr. Vladimir Novotn of the Narodni Galerie, Prague; Dr.

Wegner of the Graphische Sammlung, Munich; Dr. Wolf Stubbe of the Kunsthalle, Hamburg; Dr. G. Busch of the Kunsthalle, Bremen; Dr. Hans Mohle of the Staatliche Museen, Berlin; Dr. Menz of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden; Miss B. L. D. Ihle of the Boymans Museum, Rotterdam; and M. Jean Adhemar of the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.

The excellent collections of chiaroscuro prints in the Museums of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution have formed a valuable basis for this monograph.

These prints include the set of Jackson's Venetian chiaroscuros, originally owned by Jackson's patron, Joseph Smith, British Consul in Venice, now in the Rosenwald Collection, National Gallery of Art, and the representative sampling of Jackson's work in the Division of Graphic Arts, U.S. National Museum.

I am indebted to the following museums which have kindly given permission to reproduce Jackson prints in their collections. These are listed by catalog number.

Smithsonian Inst.i.tution 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 (also in color), 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 39, 50, 51, 52, 53 (also in color), 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 63

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (W. G. Russell Allen Estate) 1 (also in color), 11, 14, 23, 33, 34, 38, 40 (also in color)

Fogg Art Museum 13 (also in color)

Worcester Art Museum 32

Metropolitan Museum of Art 5 (Rogers Fund) (also in color), 17, 31 (gift of Winslow Ames), 73 (Whittelsey Fund)

Philadelphia Museum of Art (John Frederick Lewis Collection) 2, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 74

British Museum 2 (in color), 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 37, 41, 42, 43 (also in color), 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49 (also in color), 59, 69, 70, 71, 72, 75, 76 (photographs by John R. Freeman & Co.)

Victoria and Albert Museum (Crown copyright) 3, 35, 36, 40

Finally, I want to thank the Editorial Office of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution for planning and designing this book; the Government Printing Office for their special care in its production; and Mr. Harold E. Hugo for his expert supervision of the color plates.

A grant from the American Philosophical Society (Johnson Fund), made it possible to conduct research on Jackson in Europe. Acknowledgment is herewith gratefully given.

JACOB KAINEN

_Smithsonian Inst.i.tution_

_September 1, 1961_

_John Baptist Jackson_

18th-Century Master

of the Color Woodcut

Jackson and His Tradition

_The Woodcut Tradition_

Although the woodcut is the oldest traditional print medium it was the last to win respectability as an art form. It had to wait until the 1880's and 1890's, when Vallotton, Gauguin, Munch, and others made their first unheralded efforts, and when j.a.panese prints came into vogue, for the initial stirrings of a less biased att.i.tude toward this medium, so long considered little more than a craft. With the woodcut almost beneath notice it is understandable that Jackson's work should have failed to impress art historians unduly until recent times. Although he bore the brunt as an isolated prophet and special pleader between 1725 and 1754, his significance began to be appreciated only after the turn of the 20th century, first perhaps by Martin Hardie in 1906, and next and more clearly by Pierre Gusman in 1916 and Max J. Friedlander in 1917, when modern artists were committing heresies, among them the elevation of the woodcut to prominence as a first-hand art form. In this iconoclastic atmosphere Jackson's almost forgotten chiaroscuros no longer appeared as failures of technique, for they had been so regarded by most earlier writers, but as deliberately novel efforts in an original style. The innovating character of his woodcuts in full color was also given respectful mention for the first time. But these were brief a.s.sessments in general surveys.

If the woodcut was cheaply held, it was at least acceptable for certain limited purposes. But printing pictures in color, in any medium, was considered a weakening of the fiber-- an excursion into prettification or floridity. It was not esteemed in higher art circles, except for a short burst at the end of the 18th century in France and England. This was an important development, admittedly, and the prints were coveted until quite recently. They are still highly desirable. But while Bartolozzi stipple engravings or Janinet aquatints in color might have commanded higher prices than Callots or Goyas, or even than many Durers and Rembrandts, no one was fooled. The extreme desirability of the color prints was mostly a matter of interior decoration: nothing could give a finer 18th century aura. It was not so much color printing that mattered; it was _late 18th century_ color printing that was wanted, often by amateurs who collected nothing else. Color prints before and after this period did not appeal to discriminating collectors except as rarities, as exotic offshoots. Even chiaroscuros, with their few sober tones, fell into this periphery. Jackson, as a result, was naturally excluded from the main field of attention.

The wors.h.i.+p of black-and-white as the highest expression of the graphic arts[1] 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. This estimate was unfortunately true enough in most cases, true enough at least to cause the practice to be regarded with suspicion. As an indication of how things have changed in recent years we can say that color is no longer the exception. It threatens, in fact, to become the rule, and black-and-white now fights a retreating battle. A comparison of any large exhibition today with one of even 20 years ago will make this plain.

[Footnote 1: The purist's att.i.tude was pungently expressed by Whistler. Pennell records this remark: "Black ink on white paper was good enough for Rembrandt; it ought to be good enough for you." (Joseph Pennell, _The Graphic Arts_, Chicago, 1921, p.

178.)]

At first glance Jackson seems to be simply a belated 18th-century worker in the chiaroscuro process. 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 anonymity[2] (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. We will find other instances of his significance from the English standpoint, but his being English, of course, would have a small part in explaining the importance of his prints.

[Footnote 2: The only earlier name is that of George Edwards.

Oxford University has most of the blocks for a decorated alphabet he engraved on end-grain wood for Dr. Fell in 1674. Further data on Edwards can be found in Harry Carter's _Wolvercote Mill_, Oxford, 1957, pp. 14, 15, 20, and in Moxon's _Mechanick Exercises, or the Doctrine of Handy Works Applied to the Art of Printing_.

(Reprint of 1st ed., 1683, edited and annotated by Herbert Davis and Harry Carter, Oxford, 1958, p. 26n.)]

Jackson made, in fact, the biggest break in the traditions of the woodcut since the 16th century. He broadened the scope of the chiaroscuro print and launched the color woodcut as a distinct art form that rivaled the polychrome effects of painting while retaining a character of its own. These were not modest little pieces of purely technical interest. The set of 24 sheets reproducing 17 paintings by Venetian masters made up the most heroic single project in chiaroscuro, and the 6 large landscapes, completed in 1744, after gouache paintings by Marco Ricci, were the most impressive color woodcuts in the Western world between the 16th century and the last decade of the 19th.

But Jackson's grand ambition to advance the woodcut beyond all other graphic media had little public or private support and finally led him to ruin. His efforts were made with insufficient means and with few patrons. As a consequence, he rarely printed editions after the blocks were cut and proofed. The Venetian set is well known because it was printed in a substantial edition. A few additional subjects were also sponsored by patrons, but most of Jackson's other chiaroscuros were never published-- they were limited to a few proofs. Editions were postponed, no doubt, in the hope that a patron would come along to pay expenses in return for a formal dedication in Latin, but this did not often happen. 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.

Jackson has long been considered an interesting figure. _His Essay on the Invention of Engraving and Printing in Chiaro Oscuro_...,[3] with its bold claims to innovation and merit, his adventurous career as an English woodcutter in Europe, his adaptation of the color woodcut to wallpaper printing and his pioneering efforts in this field, and Papillon's immoderate attack on him in the important _Traite historique et pratique de la gravure en bois_[4] will be discussed later. For the moment we can say that the Essay was the first book by an Englishman with color plates since the _Book of St. Albans_ of 1486, with its heraldic s.h.i.+elds in three or four colors, and the first book with block-print plates in naturalistic colors.[5]