No green leaves on the trees yet, but my window is wide open this morning and a very pleasant spring atmosphere is coming up from the garden! Here’s the spring, at last! This winter seemed to be a never ending one this year!
Now, if you could have a look at the sunny room where I’m writing, you would be amazed by the number of books which are piling everywhere. Never-ending too, those piles! On my desk you would find leaflets, postcards, articles and two or three beautifully illustrated volumes about Charles Rennie Mackintosh. If you have read our recent posts, you must already know that we are now focusing on this great artist on Scotiana. With his modern style motifs Mackintosh is doing as well as St Mungo with his legendary emblems on the city’s coat of arms to make Glasgow flourish!
Just read what Janice has written in her last post about the Glasgow School of Art, and the symbolic designs which are to be found on its façade. It’s a very good beginning to enter the world of Mackintosh !
Art Nouveau- Window -Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum - mike.thomson75's (Flickr)
We are no experts, neither in artistic matters nor in Mackintosh art but we like very much the Glasgow Style, as we’ve found it expressed in design and architecture, with its sober lines and delicate colours, its floral and geometrical motifs. The feminine touch is omnipresent and some Celtic and Japanese influences are clearly perceptible. Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the internationally famous architect and designer was the leader of a group of artists who came to be known as The Four and who included the painter and glass artist, Margaret MacDonald, who was Mackintosh’s wife, also MacDonald’s sister, Frances, and Herbert MacNair. As soon as we discovered these marvellous artists we were fascinated!
Margaret MacDonald - White Rose and Red Rose ( Wikipedia )
So, if you intend to visit Glasgow don’t forget to put Mackintosh on your agenda. There is really something magical in his art! There are many places designed by or devoted to Mackintosh in Glasgow, so you will need to plan your Mackintosh trail very carefully. We didn’t and we lost precious time.
Glasgow Mackintosh Trail Scotland with Style Leaflet - 2007
We could have tried the one-day £12 Charles Rennie Mackintosh Trail Ticket. Not only does it give you unlimited travel on the city’s subway and First bus services in Greater Glasgow but it also includes entry to the main Mackintosh attractions. If you limit your visits to The Glasgow School of Art and The Hill House, which will already take you a lot of time, this ticket will be well worth the purchase, for an adult entry to the School of Art will cost you £ 6.50 and one to the Hill House £8.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh Scotland with style leaflet map
(Click on the map to enlarge)
The three of us are quite impatient to go back to Glasgow to visit and revisit all the Mackintosh places.
Below are some pictures of our favourite attractions:
We were very disappointed to learn that we could not visit The House for an Art Lover that day because a wedding reception was going to take place there. The building architecture and the garden are well worth the trip , not to speak of the very refined meal we had there, in the very nice setting of the restaurant, but we’ll have to come back there anyway !
Here’s an article from Wikipedia which explains quite well the origins of the house.
The House for an Art Lover is based on a design produced in 1901 by Charles Rennie Mackintosh with his wife, Margaret MacDonald. The building is situated in Bellahouston Park in Glasgow, Scotland. Construction began in 1989 and the house was finally opened to the public in 1996. Mackintosh’s original designs were interpreted and realised by John Kane and Graeme Robertson (up to 1990) under Andrew MacMillan, with contributions by many contemporary artists. Original portfolio designs are displayed in each room to allow comparisons.
The house was originally designed for an ideas competition set by the German design magazine Zeitschrift für Innendekoration for a “Haus eines Kunstfreundes” (Art Lover’s House). Despite disqualification due to late entry, the portfolio was awarded a prize for “pronounced personal quality, novel and austere form and the uniform configuration of interior and exterior”. (Wikipedia)
Not being able to visit The House for an Art Lover, we’ve bought a very interesting book about this house. I can only recommend it to those who are interested by Mackintosh’s architecture even if this house was realised 70 years after his death. In Appendix 1 of this book I’ve found a reproduction of the original “Ideas Competition” German document published in December 1900, together with its English translation . The following passage is particularly interesting :
Given the importance of colour in modern architecture, the inclusion of one or more coloured sketches would be welcomed.
Only genuinely original modern designs will be considered, they must be of distinguished aspect and truly artistic construction using space to good advantage; care must be taken throughout that furniture and fittings reflect what modern day trends have achieved in both technical and artistic regard; it ought to represent a kind of ideal modern home. It should not have a character of splendid luxury, but rather that of a refined well-to-do family home. The cost of building (excluding the heating and light installations, furniture, wall paper and decoration but including the staircase and the floors) shall not exceed 100-120,000 Marks. The façades are to be artistically distinctive but, above all, simple. The architectural features, such as cornices, window and door frames are to be realised in sand stone, with the ornamental details in sand stone or other applied material.
It is permissible and even desirable that an Architect and a Decorative Artist of modern tastes develop and submit the design jointly.
Our guided visit of the School of Art by a student of the school proved to be extremely interesting, especially that of the library. It’s no longer a secret, on Scotiana, that we are very fond of libraries. How we would have liked to be forgotten there. Alas, we were not allowed to take photos inside the building so to compensate for our lack of images I give you a description of the library I’ve found my Mackintosh “bible” :
The library is quite possibly Mackintosh at his most brilliant. Soaring oak posts support substantial beams holding up the gallery and rhytmically dividing the room into a space of unequalled harmony. There is an undeniable parallel between the physicality of the room and the concept of the tree of knowledge seen through the heavy oak posts reaching towards the central grouping of 13 lights suspended from the ceiling on tendril-like cords. The symbol of the tree was one that Mackintosh used repeatedly through his career and in all areas of his art. ( Mackintosh Tamsin Pickeral Flame Tree Publishing 2005)
I always try to imagine an old building as it must have been when it was new, standing there in its past environment, without traffic lights, roadsigns and markings, and with stage-coaches passing in the street instead of our modern cars… By the way, this church is not so old since its only dates back to 1897. Here is what I’ve read on the church’s website:
The Mackintosh Church at Queen’s Cross is one of Glasgow’s hidden architectural gems. The only church in the world designed by the great Scottish architect, designer and artist, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Commissioned in 1896 by the Free Church, the simplicity of the design is inspiring. The windows are Gothic in character, yet are infused with the Mackintosh spirit, and the floral motifs he affected can be easily recognised, particularly on the tracery of the large western window above the chancel.
Queen’s Cross Church was turned into the headquarters for the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society in 1977 and when we went there our visit happened to be quite restricted because of a special event which was taking place there at the same moment. A very beautiful place and quite peaceful too !
“Every detail inside, as well as outside, received his careful, I might say loving, attention”. (Walter Blackie)
Last but not least, here’s Hill House, a beautiful house situated outside Glasgow, in a peaceful environnement and surrounded by a very nice garden …No doubt, it’s one of our favourites !
Alas, here again, we were not allowed to take photos inside the building.
Here are two other very interesting extracts from my Mackintosh “bible”, describing the exterior of the building :
The Hill House was commissioned by Walter Blackie in 1902 and is considered to be one of the most successful domestic buildings that Mackintosh completed in contrast to the Scottish vernacular treatment of the exterior, the interior is evocative of Oriental influence and has a continuing theme of the rose motif.
Mackintosh’s L-shape floor plan allowed the living quarters to sit on one axis, while the service areas were kept separate on their own axis. At The Hill House the join between them is marked by an unusual, round stairwell encased within a turret. This design was unusual in domestic architecture at this time and was further emphasized by the smaller turreted tool shed sitting below it. The exterior looks to the tradition of Baronial Scottish architecture in spirit and rendering with the time-worn use of harling on the outside walls. The surprising Mackintosh twist, however, is displayed through his use of highly varied window shapes. ( Mackintosh Tamsin Pickeral Flame Tree Publishing 2005)
Monsieur Mackintosh: The Travels And Paintings of Charles Rennie Mackintosh in the Pyrenees Orientales 1923-1927 Luath Press Ltd 2006
But I would not end this post without adding a French note… did you know Mr Mackintosh and his wife Margaret, had spent several years of their life in the south of France… I will tell you more about that as soon as I receive the above book…
As a “suite” to the great post that Mairiuna wrote about Mrs Kate Cranston’s tearooms, revealing Charles Rennie Mackintosh as the artist behind the magnificient decorative style of its interiors, I would like to emphasize today on the symbolism that lies underneath Mackintosh’s creative designs.
But first, to put ourselves into context, let’s step back a century ago…
In the late 19th century, as a reaction to “copyism” with machine made products of industrialism, an international artistic style called ‘Art Nouveau’ emerged into the cultural life of many countries. The artistic revolution was in favor of returning to natural forms and individual craftmanship.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh - Wikipedia
The purpose of this “new style” was to unite architecture and decorative art in order to create high quality design based on writhing plants forms.
Over the span of approximately twenty years, from 1890 to 1910, the enthusiasm for this creative style is clearly visible in many areas of the Arts, mainly painting, architecture, fashion, interiors, posters, and handicrafts.
In the realm of Architectural art, the leading light was the Glaswegian Scot Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
His best known work is the Glasgow School of Art, which by the way appears on a Great Britain stamp set issued to commemorate Glasgow’s 1990 designation of the European City of Culture.
Glasgow School of Art.
Art school founded in 1840 as the School of Design in Ingram Street, Glasgow. In 1869 it moved to its present site in Sauchiehall Street, and in 1896 Charles Rennie Mackintosh won a competition to design a new building. This was erected in 1897–9, with a library block and other extensions added in 1907–9.
Together they form one of the most original and dramatic works of architecture of the period anywhere in Europe. At this time the School was enjoying its golden age, under the directorship (1885–1918) of the painter Francis ( Fra) Newbery (1855–1946), who had admirable skill as an administrator and a flair for recognizing and encouraging talent. He had good connections abroad and helped the School to win an international reputation.
It continues to enjoy high status and produced a particularly outstanding crop of graduates in the 1980s, including the painters Steven Campbell (1953– ), Stephen Conroy (1964– ), and Alison Watt (1965– ). Their work marks a return to an interest in figurative art after the ‘anything goes’ 1970s.
IAN CHILVERS. “Glasgow School of Art.” The Oxford Dictionary of Art. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. (March 14, 2010). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O2-GlasgowSchoolofArt.html
While studying at the School of Art, Mackintosh met sisters, Frances and Margaret MacDonald and they were to form a group along with Herbert MacNair, to become known internationally as the Glasgow Four.
On our trip to Scotland in 2007, it was with great excitement that we arrived on Sauchiehall Street, to visit and admire one of his greatest masterpiece! We took pictures of the elements composing the building’s facade, and upon examination of these mysterious, or should I say, mystical elements, I wondered about the meaning that Charles Rennie Mackintosh, his wife Margaret, and the group all together were trying to convey through the symbols of the tree, the rose and the flower heads, to name just these few.
Painting by Dugal Cameron - Postcard
I happily found a very in depth answer to my question in the article written by A Glasgow Gnostic on his blog. A must read for everyone interested in Charles Rennie Macintosh and the Art Nouveau movement! An extract is quoted below.
Mackintosh was searching in his work for “the soul that lies beneath appearances” and he found that this soul was best expressed through a poetic mood of symbolic illumination. In the 1890s and early 1900s a spiritual atmosphere pervaded Scotland’s cultural life, and many influential artists and writers were either group members or followers of Rosicrucian, Theosophical, or Gnostic thought. There are many indications that the Glasgow Four’s ideas and inspirations were deeply affected by such movements
The Glasgow Four used the rose so often as an iconic symbol that it was characteristic of them. The rose is the grandest and noblest of nature’s symbols. It is the symbol of Nature, of the ever prolific and virgin Earth, or Isis, the mother and nourisher of man.
From his earliest 1894 pencil and color wash drawings Mackintosh depicted the Tree of Life. The sculpted relief carving above the entrance to the Glasgow School of Art portrays two maidens guarding a central tree, which is an emblem, both of the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge. Mackintosh also sets another Tree of Life within the oval glass insets on the doors of the ground floor, while the library is closely linked with the Tree of Knowledge in a series of visual puns (leaves on balusters, leaves in books).
The meaning of Mackintosh’s stylized abstract concepts seems to have eluded many commentators, but they are more ethereal and less eerie or melancholic than the images of the sisters and MacNair.
Mackintosh said, “You must be independent, shaking off all the props tradition and authority offer you, and go on alone. The artist’s motto should be, ‘I care not the least for theories or for this or that dogma so far as the practice of art is concerned—but take my stand on what I consider my personal ideal.’”
From the highest antiquity trees were connected with the gods and mystical forces in nature. Every nation had its sacred tree, with its peculiar characteristics and attributes based on natural, and also occasionally on occult properties, as expounded in the esoteric teachings.” The symbol for sacred and secret knowledge in antiquity was a tree; hence dragons (symbols of wisdom) guard the Trees of Knowledge.
Among the many representations of the rose, the cross, the square, and the circle, it is the tree, in various stylized forms, that dominates Mackintosh’s art and architecture.
In his architectural lectures, Mackintosh quoted from W. R. Lethaby’s Architecture, Mysticism and Myth, which propounded a cosmic symbolism whereby a tree is both a symbol of the universe and a basic form of building construction; so the Tree of Life now becomes a symbol for inspired architecture.
Mackintosh wrote: “You ask how you are to judge architecture? Just as you judge painting or sculpture form, color, proportion, all visible qualities—and the one great invisible quality in all art, soul“.
Mackintosh - The World Greatest Art - Flame Tree Publishing - 2005
The Glasgow Style - Laura Euler - Schiffer Publishing Ltd - 2008
Hi everybody ! Try to imagine we’re all sitting on a Mackintosh chair round a Mackintosh table, in the very special atmosphere of the Willow Tearooms in Glasgow, chatting about everything Scotland, our favourite subject !
Jane Haining
To begin with, have you read our friends’ second Letter from Scotland? This time, Iain and Margaret have told us a very moving story. I must confess I didn’t know anything about Jane Haining before reading this marvellous page about her. What I will retain about this remarkable Scotswoman, who lost her life protecting the school-girls she was in charge of in a Hungarian school, during WWII, is not only her intelligence and courage but the very kindness with which she has always acted from beginning to end.
Her story has now entered world history and her name has been inscribed, with so many others, on the walls of impressive Holocaust memorials but, under the talented pen of Iain, Jane keeps a human dimension. She becomes so lively that we feel as if we knew her, following the young woman along her short life, from her native Dumfriesshire to Glasgow and Budapest. We lose trace of her in the deadly mist of Auschwitz but a picture, a poem on a stone, a written page will speak of Jane forever.
Iain told us he had found a little book about Jane Haining which he used to write his post. He recently mentioned something which may well interests some readers. I quote him : “did you wonder that Jane should have a step-sister alive in 1997? It comes about in this way…. Jane’s father remarried in 1925 (when he was about 55). Just six months or so later, he died. But in November of that same year, a child was born to his new wife.. .. a girl, Agnes.. .. known as ‘Nan’.. .. who was to become Mrs O’Brien. I wonder whether she’s still alive.. .. she’d be almost 85?”
The Sauchiehall Street Willow Tearooms - Wikipedia
But now, back to the Willow Tearooms where we are supposed to be sipping our tea, nibbling delicious Scottish scones. I’ve nearly forgotten that, in spite of the magical decor and the very tempting menu card. Jane, who “used to bring each week a bag of cream buns for her pupils”, would certainly have liked to be here with her girls!
Quite astonishing the modern look of this tearoom! It has been renovated in its original “Modern’ Style” which, as the name doesn’t indicate, dates back to the end of the 19th century. What we have here is a marvellous example of what we call in France “Art Nouveau” . It’s simply beautiful. No wonder! It is the result of a unique collaboration between two very talented persons : Kate Cranston and Charles Rennie Mackintosh…
Charles Rennie Mackintosh - Wikipedia
Catherine Cranston - Wikipedia
Kate Cranston was born in Glasgow in 1849. Her social and family background partly explain why she has become a successful entrepreneurial lady. Her father, a baker and pastry cooker, had bought a hotel situated in Glasgow city centre. After some renovations he finally renamed it “Cranston’s Hotel and Dining Rooms” offering his customers no less than : “Convenient Coffee room and detached Smoking Rooms on Ground Floor, commodious Commercial Room and Parlour, comfortable Bed-rooms and Baths, etc. Coffee always ready. Cigars, wines, spirits, ales, Newspapers, Time-Tables, Writing Materials. Superior and varied Bill of Fare at the usual moderate charges.”
Catherine’s brother, a tea-dealer, had already opened several tea shops offering sandwiches to their customers when Catherine Cranston, launched herself in the business, carrying it a step further. With the opening of her ‘art tea-rooms”, Miss Cranston was the first to offer men and women a beautiful and cheerful place to meet in a city where industrialization was making life of people more and more difficult and grim. By the way, these tea-rooms proved to be a good alternative to pubs in times when alcoholism was widely spread and quite destructive…
Kate Cranston successively and very successfully opened four tearooms :
1878 : The Crown Luncheon Room in Argyle Street
1886 : Ingram Street Tearoom
1896 : Buchanan Street Tearooms
1903 : The Sauchiehall Willow Tearooms.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh had been born in Glasgow in 1868 and when Kate Cranston first commissioned him to design the wall murals of her Buchanan Tearooms he was only 28. This was the beginning of a long partnership between them. The Willow Tearooms opened at 217 Sauchiehall in October 1903. For the first time, Charles Rennie Mackintosh was given the opportunity to fully express his art, designing not only the interior fittings, but also the exterior and internal layout of the building. The Willow Tearooms quicky became a favorite meeting place in Glasgow.
The Willow Tearooms - Mackintosh 1903 - Wikipedia
The Willow Tearooms - Mackintosh Room de Luxe - Wikipedia
The location selected by Miss Cranston for the new tearooms was a four-storey former warehouse building on a narrow infill urban site on the south side of Sauchiehall Street. The name “Sauchiehall” is derived from “saugh”, the Scots word for a willow tree, and “haugh”, meadow. This provided the starting point for Mackintosh and MacDonald’s ideas for the design theme.
The decoration of the different rooms was themed: light for feminine, dark for masculine. The ladies’ tea room at the front was white, silver, and rose; the general lunch room at the back was panelled in oak and grey canvas, and the top-lit tea gallery above was pink, white, and grey. In addition to designing the internal architectural alterations and a new external facade, in collaboration with his wife Margaret, Mackintosh designed almost every other aspect of the tearooms, including the interior design, furniture, cutlery, menus, and even the waitress uniforms. Willow was the basis for the name of the tearooms, but it also formed an integral part of the decorative motifs employed in the interior design, and much of the timberwork used in the building fabric and furniture. (Wikipedia)
On entering the Willow Tearooms, though they have been renovated a number of times since their first opening, in 1903, we immediately feel the peculiar atmosphere Charles Rennie Mackintosh had wanted to create for Kate Cranston. Clear and sober lines – nice colours – beautiful geometrical and floral motifs – a feminine touch – what a feast !
The art of Mackintosh is omnipresent in Glasgow and our enthusiasm never failed when visiting other places or admiring objects he or his talented wife, Margaret MacDonald, had designed.
We are delighted to publish this second Letter from Scotland received from our dear friends Iain and Margaret. A very moving story…
Hello again from Scotland, Marie-Agnes, Jean-Claude and Janice!
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appears on a Great Britain stamp set issued to commemorate Glasgow’s 1990 designation of the European City of Culture.
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