JACKSON, John, a distinguished English portrait-painter, was the son of a poor tailor of Lasingham, in Yorkshire, where he was born in 1778. The strong taste for drawing which he early displayed gained him the notice of Lord Mulgrave and Sir George Beaumont, and rescued him from the humble trade of his father, to whom he had been apprenticed. Removing to London, he studied at the Royal Academy, and then began life as a portrait-painter. He
Jackson, William, found the field occupied by Beechey, Opie, Hoppner, and Lawrence. Hopeless of rivaling these artists as an oil-painter, he confined himself to water-colours, and in that walk earned a great name for himself. Renewed study with matured powers, and under more favourable circumstances, made him a master in the higher branch of his art, and in 1817 he became a Royal Academician. Two years later he visited Italy with his friend Chantrey, and was made a member of the Academy of St Luke at Rome. His best portraits are those of his brother-artists, Canova, Chantrey, Stothard, and Flaxman. His likeness of Flaxman, as was said by Sir Thomas Lawrence, would have done honour to Vandyck himself. Many of the heads in Cadell's splendid Portraits are from drawings by Jackson. He died at London, June 1, 1831. Jackson is justly regarded as one of the ablest pupils of the Reynolds school. Less showy than Lawrence, but far more true to nature, he caught with admirable ease the characteristic expression of the face, and reproduced it with a rare effect. With all his rapidity of manipulation, he always put a careful finish on his pictures. His colouring is deep, clear, brilliant, and well relieved. In private life Jackson was amiable and pious. Without a spark either of envy or jealousy, he rejoiced in each new triumph of a brother-artist as in his own, and held out a helping hand to many a youth of promise in his struggles with obscurity and poverty.