At the beginning of the twentieth century, as a designer and architect, Charles Rennie Mackintosh was acclaimed as the doyen of the Modernist Movement. He did not believe in just designing buildings. He saw an environment as a total work of art and designed everything that went into it.
But the First World War severed his ties with his contemporaries in Central Europe and styles changed. He went out of fashion and so gradually he turned more and more to painting. This is how he came to Port Vendres, a small port in the South of France where the Pyrenees plunge into the Mediterranean. The light and the climate were better than the UK and the cost of living was cheaper. The town was sufficiently close to the artist’s colony in Collioure for him to be able to close to other painters but outwith daily contact. From 1924 to 1927 he and his wife, fellow-artist Margaret Macdonald spent some of the happiest days of their lives here, wintering on the coast and in the summer moving to the cooler climate inland. His landscapes of Roussillon represent a highly individual and original style which remains quite unique.
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Qui était “Monsieur Mackintosh”?
Comme architecte et dessinateur, Charles Rennie Mackintosh était Ie maitre de ‘Art Moderne au debut du 2Oème siècle. II ne dessinait pas que des bâtiments mais aussi tous les details du decor et de l’ameublement.
La Grande Guerre fit que Ies liens se coupèrent avec ses collègues d’Europe Centrale et Ia mode a change. Ainsi il s’est tourné de plus en plus vers Ia peinture; c’est pourquoi ii est venu a Port-Vendres. La lumière et Ie climat I’inspiraient, es frais de vivre était peu élevés et des qu’il Ie souhaitait, ii pouvait s éloigner un peu des peintres de Collioure et de Ceret. De 1924 a 1927, lui et sa femme collaboratrice, Margaret, aussi peintre, ont passes des années parmi celles es plus heureuses de Ieurs vies ici. Ses paysages du Roussillon présentent une interpretation trés personnelle dont l’audace et I’originalité sont exceptionnelle et sans antecedant.