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 i6th 

 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, sparse. Later writers interpreting the com- 

 ments 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. 



IX 



