International studio (30.1906/1907(1907))

Modern Decorative Art at Glasgow


THE OLD KITCHEN AT MISS CRANSTON’S DESIGNED BY C. R. MACKINTOSH
TEA HOUSE, ARGYLE STREET, GLASGOW

with leaded glass panels of rare beauty, all combine
to make a scheme of remarkable unity and charm.
The colour combination is black and white with
a mixing of emerald green, the only variation being
a faint suggestion of pink in the rose that forms the
motif in the casement panel. Black and white
with emerald green !—why, this was a favourite
colour-scheme with Empress Josephine, a recollec-
tion that proves Napoleon’s clever consort to have
been artistically in advance of her time, or the
New Art to be less modern than we are inclined to
believe. Excepting the rose, there is but one
figure of decoration in the room. Mackintosh
adopts the square, the simplest of all conceivable
forms, and makes this the theme of his latest
decorative intent. It begins on the floor covering,
is continued in the mosaic on the hearth, is
repeated all over the velvety dado, on the mother-
of-pearl panel of the sideboard, and culminates on
the broad flat planes of the pillars that divide one
end of the room into so many alcoves. In each
case the black and white forms the chequey pattern,
the squares diminishing in size in the order named.
Every chair in the room is bright with the tint of
36

the emerald, an arrangement requiring the indivi-
dualism of a Josephine or a Mackintosh.
It must not be supposed that the critic afore-
mentioned would be unable to find points to
condemn in the latest Mackintosh creation. The
myriads of tiny squares might affect his eye un-
comfortably, nor might he be candid enough to
attribute this in chief part to the dazzling electric
light, ineffectually shaded by the reflectors depend-
ing from the ceiling. The shape of those reflectors
too might cause the critic some uneasiness ; looked
at from certain angles they suggest a deviation
from the vertical not altogether pleasing. Then
the brass mountings of the dark sideboard, and
the hinges of the wall cabinet would have fallen
in with the whole scheme more completely had
they been finished as white metal. The only
exception he might take to the construction of the
room is where one end of a heavy beam is made
to rest on a diminutive cabinet. But hypercriticism
is far from justifiable when dealing with the work of
an original-minded artist, and particularly in a case
where the tout ensemble is in the highest degree
charming. J. T.