Wednesday, April 9, 2008
There’s a new crystal chandelier on the Schonbek website called Milano that I’ve been looking forward to discussing.

Milano is a fully cast chandelier, which means that the central column, arms, scrolls, bobeches and everything else down to the merest fittings are all cast. And the castings are elaborately patterned with tiny leaf and floral motifs and purely decorative patterns.

There are other cast chandeliers on the market. But there’s no comparison between them and Milano. If you look closely at these other products, you’ll see that the ornamentation varies from one part of the chandelier to another. What’s going on is that, in order to make a fully cast design, these manufacturers have pieced together ready-made cast parts from various catalogs.

Schonbek started from scratch, designing the castings themselves for every single element in the chandelier. And they went to Italy to work with master casters whose skills were at the highest possible level.

So the end result is that Milano is a uniquely harmonious design.

In writing about this new chandelier design it’s tempting to go on and on about the castings, but Milano is a crystal chandelier, so the crystal is important. In keeping with its highly ornamental style, Milano is richly laden with multi-faceted crystal. The images on this website show Strass® and Swarovski® Spectra® crystal. But you can also opt for handcut or Strass® Golden Teak crystal.

Milano is rococo in inspiration. I’ve had a lot of fun looking up rococo on the Web. The experts make quite a distinction between baroque and rococo. Rococo is lighthearted, fun loving – and ornamental in a more romantic mood than baroque. Baroque is heroic. Rococo is idyllic.

When somebody tells you to “lighten up,” perhaps you should take this to mean, “Be rococo.” Milano gives us all an opportunity to lighten up our décor with a wonderful air of delicacy and brightness.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008
I just noticed there are several bedrooms on the website with a cream tonality. Including a bedroom with a La Scala crystal chandelier, a bedroom with Rivendell and another with two Adagio crystal chandeliers.

Designers are usually careful to create a soothing ambiance in bedrooms. They don’t want their clients lying awake at night, unable to rest between vibrant purple walls. And so the most neutral tones come into play.

The only trouble is, monochromatic color schemes can get a bit flat. This is where a crystal chandelier comes in.

No room lighted by a crystal chandelier can ever be dull. No amount of beige and cream tones can quell the essential sprightliness of your crystal chandelier. At the same time, the complex prismatic light created by crystal is soothing to the spirit.

So you can have your quiet colors without losing the sense of aliveness that every room should have. Even the room where you sleep.

Another consideration in designing a bedroom is your dream life. Whether you dream of monsters or marvels may be influenced by your frame of mind just before nodding off. With a crystal chandelier in the room, you can focus on the spectral light dancing off the crystal instead of what went wrong that day at the office.

Monday, April 7, 2008
The fact that most people can’t pronounce trompe l’oeil doesn’t stop anyone from indulging in it, I’m happy to report. This is a fun look that deserves to be revived again and again.

There are several examples on the website. This dining room is one. And this foyer.

Crystal chandeliers are a natural accompaniment to trompe l’oeil artwork. Once you get into the realm of the historic, everything begins to feel related, and in practice you can mix styles with eclat. No one will object if your chandelier shows seventeenth-century styling and your artwork is flavored with eighteenth-century design influences. If anyone even notices, they’ll credit you with a daring eclecticism.

At a deeper level a traditional crystal chandelier is itself practicing trompe l’oeil. You think you know what you’re seeing, but that’s an illusion. A crystal chandelier is changing every minute, even every second, with the changing light and movement in the room.

Even your presence has its effect on the crystal chandelier you’re looking at. Something of your image is somewhere dancing amidst the crystal of the chandelier. Perhaps there’s a reflection of you in the finial crystal globe. Or perhaps the colors of your jacket are responsible for certain flashes of color exploding off the crystal.

Living with a crystal chandelier, and contemplating it often, you may find you have a deeper appreciation of the richness of the phenomenal world, and its capricious charms.