Review: "The Life & Works of Charles Rennie Mackintosh"

[x_los]

I just finished reading a very decent little art book on Charles Rennie Mackintosh, but the copy editing thereof was surprisingly poor. There were three torturous misuses of the semi-colon in the first paragraph alone, which is something of an achievement. The author also seems to find it objectionable that Mackintosh claimed that while he might be talented, his wife was the genius. I don't feel like like Mackintosh's statement is necessarily either disingenuous or an accurate assessment. This book's author, however, is eager to assert that Mackintosh is wrong, and to suggest that when Macdonald worked alone she was too lush and unrestrained (i.e., femme) and fell short of her husband's degree of innovation. 

The couple collaborated for years on what we now think of as 'Mackintosh' projects. How sure is the author that Macdonald wasn’t a key force in the realised designs? I don't know that Macdonald's printmaking and decorative gesso elements can be taken as a totally accurate guide to her contributions to she and her husband's shared furniture and architectural projects. Those are different mediums, and in making decorative elements to suit the overall design, Macdonald was working to a different purpose. It's difficult now to determine the actual part Macdonald took in organising she and her partner's work, and I'm uncomfortable with the writer's boldness on this point. Besides, in such a short text this statement hardly needs flagged up and rebutted.