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Theory Of Decoration

Lighting Fixtures Curtains and Hangings

Lighting Fixtures

The subject of the proper lighting of rooms is important both for practical reasons as well as for decorative effects. Although lighting fixtures are a small unit in the decoration of a room, they play a part entirely incommensurate with their size, and this is especially true when they are lighted.

The lighting fixtures of antiquity were oil lamps and torches of iron, bronze, silver, and terra cotta. The fixtures of the Renaissance were in the main part for the use of candles. The result is that nearly all the best modern reproductions of period designs are for this form of light or its modern equivalent, the electric candle bulb. The use of the modern oil or gas lamp became general during a period of aesthetic decline, and the design of these forms of illuminating fixtures never developed to a satisfactory degree, though there are a few early types of considerable merit.

Today the almost universal introduction of electricity for lighting, coming at a time when matters of taste are again uppermost in the minds of the public, has permitted the growth of an industry that is producing most interesting and varied types of fixtures both in period designs and in patterns of modern taste.

In the historic periods, the lighting fixtures varied quite as much as wall treatments or furniture. In the early and crude types of Italian and Spanish rooms, wrought iron was invariably the material used. Chandeliers and lamps were hung from the beams of the high ceilings, while floor standards and candlesticks furnished the special lights. As these styles became more sophisticated, the greatest sculptors and metal workers produced magnificent specimens of fixtures in ornamental bronze and carved wood.