Mackintosh sketchbook reveals youthful rebellion on trip to Italy

The contents of a unique sketchbook penned by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the world famous Glasgow architect and artist, detailing one of his most formative experiences, a youthful trip to Italy, is to be revealed to the public next month.

It is a portrait of the artist as an inspired, but rebellious young man.

It shows Mackintosh, now renowned for his revolutionary architecture and furniture designs, as a young architect with a mind of his own - ignoring the strict stipulations of the respected grant body which made his trip possible, and instead pursuing his desire to learn more about Renaissance architecture.

In an accompanying diary he dismisses the attractions of much-celebrated Florence and Mantua, and ignores much of the remit for the journey - laid down by the Alexander Thomson Travelling Scholarship, created to encourage study of classical art - to study instead a series of beautiful churches, museums and palaces.

The sketchbook, currently in the archives of the Glasgow School of Art (GSA), but to be revealed for the first time online in December, is filled with more than 90 pages of original Mackintosh drawings from his extensive trip to Italy in 1891, embarked upon when he was 23 years old.

"It shows he was a very serious young man, but a man who thought for himself, even then," said Dr George Rawson, the art historian who has researched the sketchbook for the GSA.

"He didn't really go and see the buildings he was advised to. In an accompanying diary he writes things like I am very disappointed in Florence!' and there's nothing of interest in Mantua'. He is thinking for himself, he is following exactly what he is interested in, rather than what he was told to study."

Originally serving his apprenticeship with local architect John Hutchison, Mackintosh moved to the more established practice of Honeyman and Keppie in 1889, and had also enrolled in evening classes at the GSA.

That is where he won the Alexander Thomson grant (named after Greek' Thomson, the noted architect) which allowed him to take the tour of Italy.

Sketching buildings such as San Zeno in Verona, Sant' Ambrogio in Milan, Como Cathedral, Cremona Cathedral, Milan Cathedral, and the Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Mackintosh also drew a number of obscure buildings and designs which researchers at the GSA have spent months rediscovering and identifying.

Dr Rawson added: "He looked at churches more than anything else. In Rome he did look at the classical buildings, and he went to Pompey, so he did show some interest in the classical.

"But when he returned, the trustees of the the grant told him he had spent much time looking at the wrong' things. But he did what he wanted.

"What this sketchbook shows is Mackintosh right at the beginning of his career: he is still developing, gathering the ideas that he will put into use in later years.

"In his entry to the design competition for the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, which he did for Honeyman and Keppie, you can clearly see the influence of these Italian days."

Mackintosh left Glasgow for London on March 21, 1891, sailing from Tilbury on the Thames on March 27 and arriving in Naples on April 5 and on his way back to Scotland, he visited Paris and Antwerp.

The sketchbook also contains several pages of designs for the Glasgow Art Club (which he worked on 1892-3) and the Glasgow Herald Building (1893-5), now called The Lighthouse.

The book was gifted to the GSA in the 1950s, and the new research and website has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

In 2004 and 2005, staff at the school, Dr Rawson, David Buri and Elaine Grogan, travelled through Italy, France, Belgium and Glasgow, locating and photographing, the sources for Mackintosh's drawings.

The Glasgow School of Art's archives contain more than 30,000 items, covering the school's history since its opening in 1845, including information on former staff, students and activities.

It has a wealth of material linked to Mackintosh, including sketchbooks and photograph albums, furniture and watercolour, architectural drawings and correspondence. In 2008, the archives and collections will move into new purpose built facilities in the school's Mackintosh Building.

Travelogue

He left Glasgow for London on March 21, 1891, sailing from Tilbury on the Thames on March 27 and arriving in Naples on April 5.
He then visited Palermo in Sicily, Rome, Orvieto, Siena, Florence, Pisa, Pistoia, Bologna, Ravenna, Ferrara, Venice, Padua, and Vicenza, arriving in Verona on June 10, 1891.
The sketchbook he made on his travels include his stays in Verona, Mantua, Cremona, Brescia, Bergamo, Lecco, Cadenabbia and Lake Como, Como, Milan, Pavia, and Certosa di Pavia.
He sketched buildings such as San Zeno in Verona, Sant' Ambrogio in Milan, Como Cathedral, Cremona Cathedral, Milan Cathedral, and the Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.
On his way back, he visited Paris and Antwerp.
His sketchbook also contains several pages of designs for the Glasgow Art Club (which he worked on 1892-3) and the Glasgow Herald Building (1893-5), now called The Lighthouse.