symbol of Nature, of the ever prolific and virgin Earth, or Isis,
the mother and nourisher of man, considered as feminine
and represented as a
virgin woman by the
Egyptian initiates."
It is no coincidence
that Charles' most
famous fabric design
is the 'Rose and
Teardrop' pattern,
widely reproduced.
The Mackintoshes
thus disseminated,
through a variety of
decorative vehicles,
an image pregnant
with esoteric meaning
best apprehended,
like love, in interiority,
in privacy.
More recently, I
encountered two
other images of a
heart and a rose
which I found not
only decorative, but emotionally powerful. My friend,
the German painter Petra Singh, has hanging in her
bedroom—a sanctuary defined by ancient Indian furniture
and artifacts—two of her paintings which, like Margaret
MacDonald's, are redolent with the relationship between
passion, mystical or human, the Rose and the Heart. Petra
possesses an important collection of contemporary art—
Dschungle Rose, 2010
HYLAND
