“The Wassail”
“The Wassail” is a gesso wall frieze that was made in 1900 by the Art Nouveau Scottish artist and architect, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. In this piece, gesso was painted on loose-woven hessian fabric over a wooden frame that was embellished with string, steel pins, beads, and tin leaf.
This wall frieze depicts wassailing, a pagan fertility ceremony that was practiced to help ensure a good crop. The tradition of wassailing continued for hundreds of years in both British and European customs, generally around the Christmas holiday. Mackintosh decorated this piece with pagan symbols including an all-seeing eye and mistletoe.
This piece was made for The Ladies’ Luncheon Room at Miss Cranston’s Ingram Street Tearooms in Glasgow, Scotland. Mackintosh remodeled a series of tearooms for Miss Cranston in the beginning of the twentieth century. This piece was made in three sections and hung in the tearoom along with its companion piece, “The May Queen”, which was created by Margaret Macdonald, Mackintosh’s wife whom he married that same year.
“The Wassail” is currently on display at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, Scotland.
For more on Charles Rennie Mackintosh, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
