I'm embarrassed to admit I wasn't really familiar with Charles Rennie Mackintosh until I began researching our trip to Scotland.
He and Herbert McNair, a fellow architect, joined a group of young female art students known as "The Immortals," eventually marrying sisters Margaret and Francis MacDonald. The four of them pioneered the the United Kingdom's Modern Style or British Art Nouveau movement. Sadly, both of the men ended up disillusioned despite their tremendous influence.
Thom pointed out the home that Rennie and Margaret designed and furnished themselves, now demolished. It was just across the street from the Hunterian, which has reassembled the interiors as part of the Mackintosh House, giving Margaret short shrift.
Three floors of beautiful interiors and uncomfortable furniture called Frank Lloyd Wright to mind. America, more than tradition-bound Scotland may have welcomed the principle they shared: light is better than heavy and dark.
Pretty sure the Macdonald sisters designed this book binding, too.
Mackintosh's iconic Glasgow rose appears appears in several iterations, including inside this cabinet.
Margaret's hand is most visible in the beaded paintings, metal work and other decorative touches.
The Mackintoshes didn't do everything themselves. Edward Atkinson Hornel, a Glasgow Boy influenced by his travels in Japan, painted "The Fan Girls," a gorgeous blast of color.
The Hunterian Art Gallery includes a lot of other fine work besides the Mackintosh House.
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| Anne of Austria by Alonso Sanchez Coello (1570) |
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| "Still Life with Dead Game" by Frans Snyders (1595-1657) |
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| "A Blackbuck" by George Stubbs (1769-1782) |
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| Edmund Law Lushington by Thomas Woolner (1877) |
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| "Music or Two Figures in a Landscape" by David Gauld (1889) |
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| Annabel Lee by James McNeill Whistler (1896-1899) |
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| "Still Life with Fish" by Jack Knox (1976) |
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