to create Ricci-like designs.

Having determined his color scheme Jackson cut seven to ten blocks, each
designed to bear an individual color which was to combine with others
when necessary to form new colors. No outline block was used. To obtain
variations from light to dark in each pigment Jackson scraped down the
blocks with a knife; he thus lowered the surfaces slightly and created
porous textures which would introduce the white paper or the underlying
color. Examination of the prints clearly shows granular textures in the
light areas. Scraping to lighten impressions was a common procedure in
black-and-white printmaking, and was described by both Papillon and
Bewick. In addition Jackson no doubt used underlays, that is, small
pieces of paper pasted in layers of diminishing size on the backs of the
blocks where the color was most intense. The pressure was therefore
greatest in the deepest notes and lightest in the scraped parts. The
copper plate press enabled Jackson to get good register without making
marks on the blocks. The paper was dampened and fastened to the chase at
one end. After each impression the next inked block was slid into the
chase and printed wet into wet. Problems of register were eliminated
because the sheets were held in place at all times, the blocks fitting
the same form. No doubt the paper was sprinkled with water on the
reverse side after each impression to eliminate shrinking and to keep it
soft for printing. This method would explain Jackson's transparent
effects.

Although the Ricci prints were certainly the most ambitious and
complexly planned prints of the century, the cutting is crisp and
decisive and the effect fresh and unlabored. As in the Venetian set
embossing is consciously applied. Most likely Jackson impressed the
finished prints, specially redampened for the purpose, with one or two
of the uninked blocks. Jackson interpreted Ricci's qualities with great
spirit, and in doing so he liberated the color woodcut from its old
conventions. The "true"-color prints he produced in the medium preceded
the Japanese, if not the Chinese.[31] In Japan, it must be remembered,
simple color printing in rose and green supplanted hand coloring in
about 1741, and rudimentary polychrome prints can be dated as early as
1745, but, as Binyon[32] puts it, "it was not until 1764 that the first
rather tentative _nishiki-ye_, or complete colour-prints were produced
in Yedo, and the long reign of the Primi