Survey 6 – The School that Breeds Artistic Geniuses

The Glasgow school in Scotland is known for its architecture and design, but what puts the school on the map are the artistic geniuses it created, called the Glasgow four! The huge revolutionaries who are a part of the Glasgow four are architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, glass artist Margaret MacDonald, designer Frances MacDonald, and designer James Herbert MacNair. These legends incorporated their art with the influence of the Celtic Revival, Japonisme, and the Arts and Crafts Movement.

The revolutionary Glasgow School of Prodigies

The Glasgow School is popularly known for its birth of the Glasgow Four and its creative geniuses in interior design, painting, and architecture. The school flourished during the 1890s to 1910s, and the Glasgow Four contributed to revolutionary art movements such as Art Nouveau, and the four created their own distinctive Glasgow Style. The Glasgow School was built during the Art Nouveau period and is a beautiful building with a very decorative and ornamental design!

The Scottish Art Nouveau

The Glasgow Four are prominently famous for their impact on Art Nouveau. Art Nouveau is recognized for its decorated art style, curved/wavy lines, ornamentation, pretty women, and the incorporation of plants. In Scotland, the Glasgow Four had a distinctive style of Art Nouveau, and their version featured more geometric and restrained ornamental and curved lines. Charles Rennie Mackintosh interestingly developed a trend where he would draw roses and leaves in geometric patterns by using black and white colours (which influenced many art and design movements as the years passed).

Architecture of the Glasgow Students

Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife Margaret Macdonald built a house called the “House for an Art Lover.” The House for an Art Lover is located in Bellahouston Park in Glasgow, Scotland, and was originally built for an architectural design competition. However, the house was disqualified due to late entry and unfinished sketches of the house design, but their portfolio was awarded a prize for its “pronounced personal quality, novel, and austere form and the uniform configuration of interior and exterior.”

The house’s design incorporated traditional Victorian designs, modern concepts with masculine and feminine attributes, natural forms with abstract thought, and simple concepts with complex designs. Mackintosh and Macdonald expressed their creative freedom when designing the house, which is why they called it the “House for an Art Lover.”