Mackintosh, Artist

Reason informed by emotion - expressed in beauty - elevated by earnestness - lightened by humour - that is the ideal that should guide all artists.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh, architect, designer and artist, is an even more enigmatic figure today than when he was alive. While the astonishing modernity of his work has long ensured him a place of prominence among the pioneers of the Modern Movement, in recent years his promotion of symbolic decoration has been hailed as prophetically post-modern.

Mackintosh believed architecture was the supreme discipline, as it uniquely brought all the arts together. To understand his work, it must be seen as a complete unit rather than as individual components. His aim was to connect individuals with his work both functionally and spiritually. He believed this could be achieved through a series of carefully balancing opposites: modernity with tradition, the masculine with the feminine, light with dark and the sensual with the chaste. His work has a distinctive character, as a figure head of his time, caught in the difficult transition between the Victorian era and the Modern age.