John Baptist Jackson | Page 8

done with the engraver's burin on type metal or end-grain boxwood. They therefore showed elements of a "white-line" style as opposed to the black-line or knife-cut method commonly used in other countries. While it is likely that Jackson was an exception to the general rule in England (we have his word for it in the Enquiry, as we shall see), he was also deeply influenced by the prevailing English style of burin work on wood or type metal. If Papillon saw a similarity between Jackson's cuts and those in the Latin Classics, it might have been because he was unfamiliar with other examples of English work and did not recognize a national style.
The initials "J. B. I." appear on a small cut in the 1717 edition of Dryden's plays, also published by Tonson. If this is an early piece by Jackson it would indicate that he might have been born earlier than 1701, although it is conceivable that he could have made it when he was sixteen.
This is the extent of the evidence, or rather lack of evidence, of Jackson's early years in England. Nothing is certain except that woodblock work was at a particularly low ebb. Standards in typography and printing were rude (Caslon was just beginning his career), far inferior to those on the Continent. Cuts were used rather sparingly by printers, and almost always for initial letters (these included little pictures), for tailpieces, and for decorative borders. As a measure of economy the same cut was often repeated throughout a book. Also, initial letters were sometimes contrived to permit the type for different capitals to be inserted in the center area, so that in some instances no more than two cuts were needed to begin alternate chapters in a volume. Rarely were woodblocks employed to illustrate the text. Pictures were almost always supplied by the copper-plate engraver, even when the prints were small and surrounded with typographical matter. This was an expensive and troublesome procedure, but it was the only one possible where an able group of cutters or engravers on wood did not exist and where printers found it difficult to achieve good impressions on the uneven laid paper of the time.
The main employment for knife cutters on wood was in making the popular prints, or illustrated broadsides, which had been sold in city and village throughout the country since the early 1600's. Plank and knife could be used for these prints because of the generally large size of the pictures and the lack of sophistication of the audience. They are described by Bewick from his memories as a boy in the 1760's:[16]
I cannot, however, help lamenting that, in all the vicissitudes which the art of wood engraving has undergone, some species of it are lost and done away: I mean the large blocks with the prints from them, so common to be seen, when I was a boy, in every cottage and farm house throughout the country. These blocks, I suppose, from their size, must have been cut on the plank way on beech, or some other kind of close-grained wood; and from the immense number of impressions from them, so cheaply and extensively spread over the whole country, must have given employment to a great number of artists, in this inferior department of woodcutting.... These prints, which were sold at a very low price, were commonly illustrative of some memorable exploits, or were, perhaps, the portraits of eminent men.... Besides these, there were a great variety of other designs, often with songs added to them of a moral, a patriotic, or a rural tendency, which served to enliven the circle in which they were admired. To enumerate the great variety of these pictures would be a task.
[Footnote 16: Bewick, 1925 (1st ed. London, 1862), pp. 211-212.]
Bewick adds that some of these popular woodcuts, although not the great majority, were very good. Since this was the main field for woodcutters, it is an interesting conjecture that Jackson might have been trained for this craft. As he matured, we can assume that he felt the urge to excel as a woodcutter and left the country to develop his potentialities.
It must be remembered that in painting and engraving England was far behind the continental countries, which could boast of centuries of celebrated masters. The medieval period persisted in England until the time of Henry VIII. Traditional religious subjects, so indispensable to European art, were thereafter generally proscribed. There was no fondness as yet for themes of classical mythology, and the new and developing national tradition in painting had to form itself on the only remaining field of pictorial expression, portraiture. Standards of style were set by foreign artists who were lured to England to record its prominent personages in a fitting manner. Beside such masters as Holbein,