Editing Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh (section)

== Inspiration and style ==
Mackintosh did not keep sketchbooks, which reflects her reliance on imagination rather than on nature.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title='Glasgow Girls': Women in Art and Design 1880–1920|last=Robertson|first=Pamela|publisher=Canongate|year=1990|isbn=978-1-84195-151-5|location=Edinburgh|page=113|chapter=Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh (1864–1933)|editor-last=Burkhauser|editor-first=Jude}}</ref> A few sources provided significant inspiration for her works, including the [[Bible]], the ''[[Odyssey]],'' poems by [[William Morris|Morris]] and [[Dante Gabriel Rossetti|Rossetti]], and the works of [[Maurice Maeterlinck]].<ref name=":0" /> Her works, along with those works of her often collaborating sister, defied her contemporaries' conceptions of art. [[Gleeson White]] wrote, "With a delightfully innocent air these two sisters disclaim any attempt to acknowledge that Egyptian decoration has interested them specially. 'We have no basis.' Nor do they advance any theory."<ref name=":0" />

The beginning of her artistic career reflects broad strokes of experimentation. Largely drawing from her imagination, she reinterpreted traditional themes, allegories, and symbols in inventive ways.<ref>{{Cite book|title='Glasgow Girls': Women in Art and Design 1880–1920|last=Neat|first=Timothy|publisher=Canongate|year=1990|isbn=978-1-84195-151-5|location=Edinburgh|page=117|editor-last=Burkhauser|editor-first=Jude|chapter=Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor: Margaret Macdonald and the Principle of Choice}}</ref> For instance, immediately following the 1896 opening of her Glasgow studio with her sister, she transformed broad ideas such as "Time" and "Summer" into highly stylized human forms.<ref>{{Cite book|title='Glasgow Girls': Women in Art and Design 1880–1920|last=Robertson|first=Pamela|publisher=Canongate|year=1990|isbn=978-1-84195-151-5|location=Edinburgh|page=110|editor-last=Burkhauser|editor-first=Jude|chapter=Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh (1864–1933)}}</ref> Many of her works incorporate muted natural tones, elongated nude human forms, and a subtle interplay between geometric and natural motifs. Above all, her designs demonstrated a type of originality that distinguishes her from other artists of her time.<ref>{{Cite book|title='Glasgow Girls': Women in Art and Design 1880–1920|last=Robertson|first=Pamela|publisher=Canongate|year=1990|isbn=978-1-84195-151-5|location=Edinburgh|page=109|editor-last=Burkhauser|editor-first=Jude|chapter=Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh (1864–1933)}}</ref>