The Mackintosh Style: Design and Decor

The Mackintosh Style celebrates the work of one of the most influential figures in modern design. Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Scotland's greatest architect and designer, was remarkable for the wide range of his achievements and the clarity of his vision. His work - from architectural masterpieces on a public and domestic scale to innovative interior decorations and designs for furniture to the most delicate household utensils - is of exceptional elegance and refinement, revealing an incomparable talent of great originality.
Mackintosh was ahead of his time - too far ahead to reap the rewards of his genius. In a brief career, dogged by disappointment and lack of recognition, Mackintosh created the first masterpiece of modern architecture: the Glasgow School of Art, a building which expresses all the vibrant creativity of his home city at the turn of the century. His design of family houses shows a practicality as well as beauty, while the tearoom interiors he created for his patron, Miss Cranston, display the exquisite perfection of detail that characterized his work.
From tiles to wrought ironwork, tables to the arranging of flowers, knives and forks to fireplaces, Mackintosh concerned himself with every aspect of architecture and decoration, dissolving conventional boundaries between art, craft, and design.

These two works on Scottish designer-artist-architect Mackintosh complement each other nicely. By the curator of the University of Glasgow's Mackintosh Collection, Flowers highlights one of the more prominent motifs that runs throughout his prolific career, which includes architectural and interior design, textiles, and graphic works. The spectacular colorplates reveal his profound artistry, mastery of subject matter, and technique of design. Chapters focus on Mackintosh's ability as a master architectural draftsman and botanical illustrator, as well as his stylized plant forms and baskets of flowers. Addressing her subject more broadly, Wilhide (William Morris, LJ 2/1/92) devotes the opening section to Mackintosh's life, including the influence and contribution of his wife, Margaret Macdonald, and his work with the Glasgow School of Art, the Four, and the architectural firm of Honeyman, Keppie and Mackintosh. Section 2 focuses on the new Glasgow Style, frequently associated with Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts movement, and Section 3 encompasses the art of space and Mackintosh's exceptional architectural projects and various interiors. Section 4 concentrates on the elements of his style, which featured sparsely arranged and furnished rooms, the use of the color white, stenciling, rigorous use of geometric shapes, and his most famous ebonized high-back chairs. The appendixes include a list of Mackintosh sites to visit in Scotland, England, and France and a list of sources of Mackintosh designs in both Europe and the United States. These two books provide welcome insight into the life and career of Mackintosh and are recommended for libraries emphasizing architecture and decorative arts.?Stephen Allan Patrick, East Tennessee State Univ. Lib., Johnson City
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