In all the equipment of the modern house, I think there is nothing more
difficult than the problem of artificial light. To have the light
properly distributed so that the rooms may be suffused with just the
proper glow, but never a glare; so that the base outlets for
reading-lamps shall be at convenient angles, so that the wall lights
shall be beautifully balanced,--all this means prodigious thought and
care before the actual placing of the lights is accomplished.
In domestic architecture light is usually provided for some special
function; to dress by, to read by, or to eat by. If properly considered,
there is no reason why one's lighting fixtures should not be beautiful
as well as utilitarian. However, it is seldom indeed that one finds
lights that serve the purposes of utility and beauty.
I have rarely, I might say never, gone into a builder's house (and
indeed I might say the same of many architects' houses) but that the
first things to require changing to make the house amenable to modern
American needs were the openings for lighting fixtures. Usually, side
openings are placed much too near the trim of a door or window, so that
no self-respecting bracket can be placed in the space without
encroaching on the molding. Another favorite mistake is to place the two
wall openings in a long wall or large panel so close together that no
large picture or mirror or piece of furniture can be placed against that
wall. There is also the tendency to place the openings too high, which
always spoils a good room.
I strongly advise the woman who is having a house built or re-arranged
to lay out her electric light plan as early in the game as possible,
with due consideration to the uses of each room. If there is a high
chest of drawers for a certain wall, the size of it is just as important
in planning the lighting fixtures for that wall as is the width of the
fireplace important in the placing of the lights on the chimney-breast.
I advise putting a liberal number of base openings in a room, for it
costs little when the room is in embryo. Later on, when you find you can
change your favorite table and chair to a better position to meet the
inspiration of the completed room and that your reading-lamp can be
moved, too, because the outlet is there ready for it, will come the
compensating moments when you congratulate yourself on forethought.
There are now, fortunately, few communities in America that have not
electric power-plants. Indeed, I know of many obscure little towns of a
thousand inhabitants that have had the luxury of electric lights for
years, and have as yet no gas or water-works! Miraculously, also, the
smaller the town the cheaper is the cost of electricity. This is not a
cut-and-dried statement, but an observation from personal experience.
The little town's electricity is usually a byproduct of some
manufacturing plant, and current is often sold at so much per light per
month, instead of being measured by meter. It is pleasant to think that
many homes have bridged the smelly gap between candles and electricity
in this magic fashion.
Gas light is more difficult to manage than electricity, for there is
always the cumbersome tube and the necessity for adding mechanical
accessories before a good clear light is secured. Gas lamps are hideous,
for some obscure reason, whereas there are hundreds of simple and
excellent wall fixtures, drop lights and reading lamps to be bought
already equipped for electricity. The electric wire is such an
unobtrusive thing that it can be carried through a small hole in any
good vase, or jar, and with a suitable shade you have an attractive and
serviceable reading light. Candlesticks are easily equipped for
electricity and are the most graceful of all fixtures for
dressing-tables, bedside tables, tea tables, and such.
It is well to remember that if a room is decorated in dark colors the
light will be more readily absorbed than in a light-colored room, and
you should select and place your lighting-fixtures accordingly. Bead
covers, fringes and silk shades all obscure the light and re-absorb it,
and so require a great force of light to illuminate properly.
The subject of the selection of lighting-fixtures is limitless. There
are so many fixtures to be had nowadays--good, bad and indifferent--that
it were impossible to point out the merits and demerits of them all.
There are copies of all the best lamps and lanterns of old Europe and
many new designs that grew out of modern American needs. There are Louis
XVI lanterns simple enough to fit well into many an American hallway,
that offer excellent lessons in the simplicity of the master decorators
of old times. Contrast one of these fine old lanterns with the mass of
colored glass and beads and crude lines and curves of many modern hall
lanterns. I like a ceiling bowl of crystal or alabaster with lights
inside, for halls, but the expense of such a bowl is great. However, I
recently saw a reproduction of an old alabaster bowl made of soft,
cloudy glass, not of alabaster, which sold at a fraction of the price of
the original, and it seemed to meet all the requirements.
Of course, one may easily spend as much money on lighting-fixtures as on
the remainder of the house, but that is no reason why people who must
practise economy should admit ugly fixtures into their homes. There are
always good and bad fixtures offered at the lowest and highest prices.
You have no defense if you build your own house. If you are making the
best of a rented house or an apartment, that is different. But good
taste is sufficient armor against the snare of gaudy beads and cheap
glass.
[Illustration: DETAIL OF A FINE OLD FRENCH FIXTURE OF HAND-WROUGHT
METAL]
There was recently an exhibition in New York of the craftsmanship of
the students of a certain school of design. There were some really
beautiful lanterns and wall brackets and reading lamps shown, designed
and executed by young women who are self supporting by day and can give
only a few evening hours, or an occasional day, to the pursuit of their
avocation. One hanging lantern of terra cotta was very fine indeed, and
there were many notable fixtures. There must be easily tens of thousands
of young people who are students in the various schools of design,
manual training high schools and normal art schools.
Why doesn't some far-seeing manufacturer of lighting-fixtures give these
young people a chance to adapt the fine old French and Italian designs
to our modern needs? Why not have your daughter or son copy such an
object that has use and beauty, instead of encouraging the daubing of
china or the piercing of brass that leads to nothing? And if you haven't
a daughter or son, encourage the young artisan, your neighbor, who is
trying to "find himself." Let him copy a few good old fixtures for you.
They will cost no more than the gaudy vulgar fixtures that are sold in
so many shops.
The photograph shown on page 108 illustrates the possibility of using a
number of lighting-fixtures in one room. The room shown is my own
drawing-room. You will observe that in this picture there are many
different lights. The two old French fixtures of wrought gilt, which
flank the mantel mirror, hold wax candles. The two easy chairs have
little tables beside them holding three-pronged silver candlesticks.
There is also a small table holding an electric reading-lamp, made of a
Chinese jar, with a shade of shirred silk. The chandelier is a charming
old French affair of gracefully strung crystal globules. For a formal
occasion the chandelier is lighted, but when we are few, we love the
fire glow and candlelight. If we require a stronger light for reading
there is the lamp.
The photograph here given may suggest a superfluous number of lights,
but the room itself does not. The wall fixtures are of gilt, you see,
the candlesticks of silver, the chandelier of crystal and the lamp of
Chinese porcelain and soft colored silk; so one is not conscious of the
many lights. If all the lights were screened in the same way the effect
would be different. I use this picture for this very reason--to show how
many lights may be assembled and used in one place. In considering the
placing of these lights, the firelight was not forgotten, nor the effect
of the room by day when the sunlight floods in and these many fixtures
become objects of decorative interest.
A lamp, or a wall fixture, or a chandelier, or a candlestick, must be
beautiful in itself--beautiful by sunlight,--if it is really successful.
The soft glow of night light may make commonplace things beautiful, but
the final test of a fixture is its effect in relation to the other
furnishings of the room in sunlight.
[Illustration: LIGHTING FIXTURES INSPIRED BY ADAM MIRRORS]
The picture on page 118 shows the proper placing of wall fixtures when
a large picture is the chief point of interest. These wall fixtures are
particularly interesting because they are in the style of the Adam
mirrors that hang on the recessed wall spaces flanking the chimney wall.
This photograph is a lesson in the placing of objects of art. The large
painting is beautifully spaced between the line of the mantel shelf and
the lower line of the cornice. The wall fixtures are correctly placed,
and anyone can see why they would be distressingly out of key if they
were nearer the picture, or nearer the line of the chimney wall. The
picture was considered as an important part of the chimney-piece before
the openings for the fixtures were made.
Another good lamp is shown on the small table in this picture. There is
really a reading-lamp beside a comfortable couch, which cannot be seen
in the picture. This lamp, like the one in the drawing-room, is made
from a porcelain vase, with a shirred silk shade on a wire frame. An
electric light cord is run through a hole bored for it. If electricity
were not available, an oil receptacle of brass could be fitted into the
vase and the beauty of the lamp would be the same.
There are so many possibilities for making beautiful lamps of good jars
and vases that it is surprising the shops still sell their frightful
lamps covered with cabbage roses and dragons and monstrosities. A blue
and white ginger jar, a copper loving-cup, or even a homely brown
earthenware bean-pot, will make a good bowl for an oil or electric lamp,
but of the dreadful bowls sold in the shops for the purpose the less
said the better. How can one see beauty in a lurid bowl and shade of red
glass! Better stick to wax candles the rest of your life than indulge in
such a lamp!
I know people plead that they have to buy what is offered; they cannot
find simple lamps and hanging lanterns at small prices and so they
_must_ buy bad ones. The manufacturer makes just the objects that people
demand. So long as you accept these things, just so long will he make
them. If all the women who complain about the hideous lighting-fixtures
that are sold were to refuse absolutely to buy them, a few years would
show a revolution in the designing of these things.
There has been of late a vulgar fashion of having a huge mass of colored
glass and beads suspended from near-brass chains in the dining-rooms of
certain apartments and houses. These monstrous things are called
"domes"--no one knows why. For the price of one of them you could buy a
three pronged candlestick, equipped for electricity, for your
dining-room table. It is the sight of hundreds of these dreadful "domes"
in the lamp shops that gives one a feeling of discouragement. The
humblest kitchen lamp of brass and tin would be beautiful by contrast.
When all is said and done, we must come back to wax candles for the
most beautiful light of all. Electricity is the most efficient, but
candlelight is the most satisfying. For a drawing-room, or any formal
room where a clear light is not required, wax candles are perfect. There
are still a few houses left where candlesticks are things of use and are
not banished to the shelves as curiosities. Certainly the clear, white
light of electricity seems heaven-sent when one is dressing or working,
but for between-hours, for the brief periods of rest, the only thing
that rivals the comfort of candlelight is the glow of an open fire.