Heroic Landscape with Watering Place, Riders, and Obelisk 1744

John Baptist Jackson created this print – Heroic Landscape with Watering Place, Riders, and Obelisk – using woodcuts, a process more typically associated with inexpensive, popular imagery. The image is constructed from multiple blocks of wood, each carefully carved to represent different areas of tone and texture. This was an incredibly labor-intensive method of production, akin to techniques used to produce decorative wallpaper. Jackson’s choice of a traditionally "low" material and process to depict a grand, idealized landscape raises questions about the hierarchy between art and craft. The very visible wood grain, and the slight misregistration of the blocks, further emphasizes the hand-made nature of the print, a quality not usually prized in fine art. Jackson's prints, made by manual work, invite us to reconsider the value we place on different forms of artistic production, and to recognize the skill and effort involved in all kinds of making.