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 Traité 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 shields in three or four colors, and the first book with block-print plates in naturalistic colors.[5]
Although critics have been interested in Jackson as an historical figure, they have been uncertain about the merit of his work. Opinions vary surprisingly. Most judgments were based on the Venetian chiaroscuros and depended upon the quality of impressions, many of which are poor. Criticisms when they have been adverse have been surprisingly harsh. It is unusual, to say the least, for writers to take time explaining how bad an artist is. To do this implies, in any case, that he warrants serious attention; space in histories is not usually wasted on nonentities. We can see now that Jackson was misunderstood because the uses of the woodcut were rigidly circumscribed by tradition.
[ Status of the Woodcut]
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; the main function of the cutter was to follow the lines precisely and carefully. Small room existed for individual style or original interpretation; there was little in the technique to distinguish one cutter from another. In spite of these limitations,
gifted cutters could rise beyond the dead level of ordinary practice. As fine draughtsmen with a feeling for their materials they did not trace with the knife, they drew and carved with it. Their feeling for line and shape was sensitive, crisp, and supple. But although they created the masterpieces of the medium they suffered from the traditional contempt for their craft. Creative ability in a woodcutter was rarely recognized, and the art fell into gradual decline. By the time the 18th century opened it had been almost entirely abandoned as a means of creating and interpreting works of art, and had been relegated to a minor place among the print processes.
The attitude of the print connoisseur was clearly stated as early as 1762 by Horace Walpole:[6]
I have said, and for two reasons, shall say little of wooden cuts; that art never was executed in any perfection in England: engraving on metal was a final improvement of the art, and supplied the defects of cuttings in wood. The ancient wooden cuts were certainly carried to a great heighth, but that was the merit of the masters, not of the method.