Prof. Francesco Carelli

 

 

 

Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868 – 1928) was a Scottish architect, designer, water colourist and artist. His artistic approach had much in common with European Symbolism. His work, alongside that of his wife Margaret Macdonald, was influential on European design movements such as Art Nouveau and Secessionism.
Around 1892, Mackintosh met fellow artist Margaret Macdonald at the Glasgow School of Art. He and fellow student Herbert MacNair were introduced to Margaret and her sister Frances MacDonald by the head of the Glasgow School of Art, Francis Henry Newbery, who saw similarities in their work. Margaret and Charles married on 22 August 1900.  The group worked collaboratively and came to be known as “The Four “, and were prominent figures in Glasgow Style art and design.
This style was admired by Mackintosh because of its restraint and economy of means rather than ostentatious accumulation; its simple forms and natural materials rather than elaboration and artifice; and its use of texture and light and shadow rather than pattern and ornament. In the Japanese arts, furniture and design focused on the quality of the space, which was meant to evoke a calming and organic feeling to the interior.
At the same time a new philosophy concerned with creating functional and practical design was emerging throughout Europe: modernism. The central aim in modernism was to develop a purity of expression with designs explicitly responsive to intended building use. Ornament and traditional styles were demoted. Mackintosh took his inspiration from his Scottish upbringing and blended them with the flourish of Art Nouveau and the simplicity of Japanese forms.
While working in architecture, Charles Rennie Mackintosh developed his own style: a contrast between strong right angles and floral-inspired decorative motifs with subtle curves (for example, the Mackintosh Rose motif). The project that helped make his international reputation was the Glasgow School of Art (1897–1909).
As with his contemporary Frank Lloyd Wright, Mackintosh’s architectural designs often included extensive specifications for the detailing, decoration, and furnishing of his buildings: the majority, if not all, of this detailing and significant contributions to his architectural drawings were designed and detailed by his wife Margaret Macdonald. Much of this work combines Mackintosh’s own designs with those of his wife, whose flowing, floral style complemented his more formal, rectilinear work. Popular in Austria and Germany, his work received acclaim when it was shown at the Vienna Secession Exhibition in 1900. It was also exhibited in Budapest, Hungary, Munich, Germany, Dresden, Venice, Italy and Moscow, Russia.
Later in life, disillusioned with architecture, Mackintosh worked largely as a watercolourist, painting numerous landscapes and flower studies, often in collaboration with Margaret, with whose style Mackintosh’s own gradually converged.