Charles Rennie Mackintosh

World of Art

by Alan Crawford

Charles Rennie Mackintosh's finest work dates from about a dozen intensely creative years around 1900. His buildings in Glasgow, and especially his craggy masterpiece the Glasgow School of Art, are more complex and playful than anything in Britain at that time. His interiors, many of them designed in collaboration with his wife, Margaret Macdonald, are both spare and sensuous, creating a world of heightened aesthetic sensibility. Finally, during the 1920s, he painted a series of watercolours which are as original as anything he had done before. Since his death, Mackintosh has been lauded as a pioneer of the Modern Movement and as a master of Art Nouveau. This book, with illustrations that include specially prepared plans and sections, takes a clear-eyed view of Mackintosh and his achievement, stripping away the myths to reveal a designer of extraordinary sophistication and inventiveness.

Genres: Art, Architecture, Design

218 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 1995

About the author

Alan Crawford is British biographer, author, and. historian of the decorative arts and architecture, notably on the Arts and Crafts movement.

Reviews

[Agustín · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book that's a good mix of biography and description of Mackintosh's development as an artists. Crawford's writing style is very good. It's an informal, relaxed narrative that shows off his talent as a researcher, academic, and appreciator of his subject.

[Dawson Cole · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this man sm. slow pleasure and deliberate joy!!!

"Here, right at the end of his life, Mackintosh reveals himself to us, as an ordinary, defeated man, rising sixty, sometimes angry or depressed, often funny, intent on his work, and trying to understand what he feels."

[Lise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite being a scholarly book, kept you engaged. Liked that he was careful about myth versus fact, and that he compared his findings to previously published books.