The Charles Rennie Mackintosh Association celebrated its first Christmas on the afternoon of Friday 16th December 2022 by organising a small party, open to the public, in its new premises on Place Castellane.
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It was an opportunity for the many visitors to discover the centre, to talk to members of the association and to combine business with pleasure by shopping for new Mackintosh-style gift items for the end-of-year celebrations.Â
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The programme for the party included
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a delicious mulled wine concocted by the president of the association and a sweet buffet of Scottish specialities from the Glasgow Willow Tea Rooms recipe book
and last but not least, a fascinating and learned conference given by our friend Jacques Raupp, watercolourist and member of the association.
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Pour découvrir le travail de Jacques cliquer ici
The conference was on 3 unlocated watercolours by Mackintosh.
Reproductions of these watercolours were presented and exhibited on this occasion.
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Below is a summary of the content of the conference:
A few notions on the practice of watercolour to begin with:-watercolour is based on the principle of transparency of colours on a light background– the success of a watercolour depends on the appropriate nature of the paper and on the correct dosage of pigments and water. Few repeats are possible– several ways of practising watercolour; presentation of a landscape by Dürer and 20th century watercolours using the wet-on-wet technique.– Mackintosh’s watercolours are very much influenced by his work as an architect; he works with flat areas treated in the same way whether they are distant or close together in space. Mackintosh simplifies, stylises and sometimes distorts.ÂPresentation of three unlocated watercolours:– A Hill Town in southern France. Very beautiful representation of a village situated at the foot of a rocky outcrop. Square format (like Dürer’s watercolour) often used by Mackintosh– Summer in the South. Beautiful work for the representation of this farmhouse where we see how the light articulates the composition with very marked shadows– A Spanish Farm. This composition without sky shows a farmhouse in a frame of a vineyard. The graphics are very prominent here. This watercolour is more thought out in values than in colours.ÂA quotation from Corot to finish, which is perfectly suited to the art of the painter Mackintosh:“One must not leave indecision in any thing”.Hopefully one day someone will be able to pinpoint where Mackintosh painted these 3 beautiful watercolours.”
And to finish some photos of Place Castellane on December 16, 2022.
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