International studio (17.1902)

Turin Exhibition

PANEL IN COLOURED GESSO
FOR A WRITING DESK

BY MARGARET M. MACKINTOSH

ness, pale rose, pink, green, and blue.
The subjects are decorative treatments
of the figure, the forms being marked,
and the surfaces led over into slight lines
of coloured gesso, and broken by spots
of colour. Set out on the floor are
various articles of furniture, notably a
black wood writing cabinet by Charles R.
Mackintosh, with panels of painted gesso
and of silver by Margaret Macdonald
Mackintosh; chairs and a table of
white wood inlaid with ivory, and a
chair in black and purple. A needle-
work panel by Margaret Macdonald
Mackintosh (lent by Herr Emil Blumen-
felt, of Berlin)] hangs on the long wall;
and this is balanced by a silver repousse
panel, also by the same artist, loaned by
Miss Cranston, whose tea-rooms, de-
signed by Mr. Mackintosh, are reckoned
by some of the pilgrims to Glasgow as
one of the sights of the city. Running
the whole length of the boudoir is a row
of silvered electric lamps, ornamented
with pendants of framed pot metal, and
fittings. No artificial light is to be allowed in the this note is echoed elsewhere on the walls of

section, but the lamps are there. Pendent from the room by lights of a bowl-shaped form, similarly

the tops of the tall mast-like poles, or hanging from decorated.

the ceiling, each on its cord of flexible wire, they The other part of the room serves by its simple

give the effect of falling streams as of a white rain, treatment as a foil to the boudoir. A few drawings

while the little lamps, hanging bare and
without reflectors, look like drops of
water. And the contents of the rooms
are, on the whole, as worthy of attention
as are the rooms that contain them,
though there is a distinct falling off in
some of the exhibits shown in the
general section. Scotland, however, is a
small country, and art life asserts itself
only in the large cities; and as one of
these, the capital, is conspicuous by its
absence, the burden falls upon the
shoulders of the art workers of Glasgow.

The first room on entering is occupied
with the work of the architect and of
his wife, Margaret Macdonald Mackin-
tosh. Short screens, projecting into the
room at right angles to the walls, indicate
a division into two parts, and one of
these parts has been treated as, and is
called, “A Rose Boudoir.” Framed into
the wall at each end are two panels
painted in gesso by Margaret Mackintosh.

Their colour schemes are of pearly light-

PANEL IN COLOURED GESSO
FOR A WRITING DESK

BY MARGARET M. MACKINTOSH