Charles Rennie Mackintosh: Art Is the Flower

Charles Rennie Mackintosh, influential Scottish architect, artist and designer, painted flowers and plants prolifically throughout his career. This publication concentrates specifically on this body of his work, and traces the development of his botanical studies from the early pencil sketchbook drawings, through the introduction of watercolour in the early 1900s, the the Walberswick group of 1914-15. Mackintosh's sophisticated still-life compositions and textile designs of later years are also considered in context. The book also considers the work of contemporary symbolists, the evident influence of contemporary Japanese floral art, the European botanical tradition and early herbals. It looks at the use of plant forms as decorative and formal sources for Mackintosh's design work in architecture, furniture, interiors, textiles and graphics, most notably his use of the rose as a design theme throughout his work.