re printers therefore, used wood engraving. Among them
were Frederich W. Gubitz of Berlin, who began the revival about 1815;
William Savage[55] of London, a printer who published a book describing
his project in 1822; and George Baxter of London, whose work dates from
about 1830. All started with chiaroscuro and moved to full color from a
large number of wood blocks, although in 1836 Baxter began printing his
transparent oil colors over a base of steel engraving reinforced with
aquatint. Only Baxter persevered and was rewarded by sensational popular
success. His glassy and trivial prints with their high sweet finish
enjoyed a vogue among collectors that lasted into the 20th century. In
about 1860, however, he was driven from the market by the rise of a
cheaper medium, chromolithography, which was responsible in the next few
decades for a universal outpouring of popular bathos. This was picture
printing in color geared for the mass audience.

[Footnote 55: Savage, 1822. Jackson's pioneer work is
acknowledged, pp. 15-16.]

It may seem an anticlimax to trace the color woodcut from Jackson to
Baxter, and finally to chromolithography, but it is not irrelevant.
Although spurned by the better artists, color had too popular an appeal
to be ignored. It was inescapable that Jackson's successful technical
procedures should finally be adopted and corrupted in the area of
commerce.

Woodcut artists up to Jackson, with few exceptions, had used color for
one major purpose, to reproduce drawings in line and tone. By enlarging
the conception of the color woodcut Jackson brought the primitive
chiaroscuro phase of its history to an end. After him, the chiaroscuro
could not be practiced again except as an archaism.[56] The way was open
for the modern woodcut, although it was a long time in coming.

[Footnote 56: Only one moderately important chiaroscurist can be
mentioned, John Skippe, who worked in England from the 1770's to
about 1810.]

The range of Jackson's work in tone and color exceeded that of all
previous woodcutters and can be divided as follows: (1) chiaroscuros--
after drawings, after paintings, after his own pen and ink drawings
after paintings, interpretations of engravings and etchings, and
interpretations of sculpture; and (2) full color-- after paintings in
gouache and after his own water colors. In addition he treated pictorial
subjects in flat color areas without a key or outline block, a procedu