Friday, July 20, 2007

Kory Rogers, assistant curator of the Shelburne Museum in Vermont, gave a lecture on crystal chandeliers last evening. I was there with my notepad. Such a lecture would, of course, be de rigueur for the author of The Crystal Chandelier Blog!

Kory said that his material was the culmination of many months of research, and that he regretted getting to the end of the project. But I suspect he’ll never stop observing the form, knowing as much as he does. Chandeliers can easily become a fascination, and you can’t help checking out the antique chandeliers in museums, palaces and cathedrals wherever you travel.

Anyway, the lecture was great. His visuals included a gorgeous blow-up of a rock crystal chandelier at Versailles, the high point for me. I’m very grateful to King Louis XIV for promoting this ornate style of chandelier. The design is ingenious, with a crystal ball hanging down and a massive crystal spike soaring upward to fill the airy open cage at the center of the chandelier.

Kory pointed out that only the nobility and the Church could afford crystal chandeliers centuries ago. And also that candles were so expensive that the owners of chandeliers didn’t keep the candles lit all the time.

I’ve known for a while how it came about that chandeliers acquired crystal ornaments. The idea was to magnify the light of candles. But I learned last night that the choice of shiny metals for chandeliers had the same purpose. So if you choose a bright gleaming finish for your Schonbek crystal chandelier, you’re in step with tradition. I myself prefer finishes that are artfully distressed, desiccated and/or mottled, techniques that mimic the ravages of time, which is an eclectic way of looking traditional. Schonbek offers so many interesting finishes,  you can suit yourself. 

Kory pointed out that antique glass-arm chandeliers haven’t survived in great numbers, because of the fragility of the arms. I sat in the audience thinking about Schonbek’s glass-arm chandeliers (we call them “all-crystal chandeliers”), which are quite strong. Schonbek engineers have somehow figured it out. The largest glass-arm chandelier in the world, with 383 lights, is made by Schonbek, a fabulous feat of engineering.

Kory is clearly fascinated with deconstructions of the classic crystal chandelier, and it was fun to see his images of a chandelier made of magnifying glasses, a chandelier suspended in a fish tank, the spaghetti chandelier, a chandelier made of 3,000 ping pong balls and so forth. Kory is also a fan of Da Vinci™ and its dishwasher-safe properties.

If you missed the lecture, you can still see the Chandelirious exhibit at the museum, running until October 23.  We’ve written it up as a commercial case study on this website.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

If you want a crystal chandelier but you don’t want the bother of installing it, consider The Rose floor lamp. Almost the only difference between this lamp and a crystal chandelier is that it stands on the floor rather than hanging from the ceiling. And it’s plug and play.

The Rose floor lamp is as fascinating as a flirtatious nineteenth-century beauty dressed for a ball. Curvaceous crystal vases form the central column of the lamp, suggestive of the corseted figure fashionable in those times. Necklace-like strands of crystal jewelry beads adorn the arms and scrolls. And The Rose in all its forms displays a wealth of crystal ornaments shaped like elongated raindrops. I find these weeping crystal jewels irresistible.

I can see The Rose floor lamp dominating a room, the way a crystal chandelier will often do. But I can also see it as just one more eccentric element in a room full of carefully orchestrated clutter (something the Victorians were good at). If you follow the route of artistic clutter, you can keep things subliminally interrelated by echoing the predominate color tones in the room with your choice of crystal colors.

I have a weakness for complex rooms with rich, dark colors. So, among the 32 varieties of The Rose, I might choose for my living room a Chanterelle crystal color palette and an Etruscan Gold finish.

On the other hand, if I was daring enough to put The Rose floor lamp in my office here at work, where there are distressed pine floors, black chairs and old wooden desks, I might like a Midnight Lace crystal color palette and a Black finish.

I rather wish someone would sneak into my office at night and steal the ugly modern floor lamp I have here in a corner, so I’d feel justified in bringing in The Rose. But don’t be like me. Don’t wait for the thief in the night. Check out The Rose at an authorized Schonbek dealer.

Monday, July 16, 2007

I’ve always loved intimate art exhibits that are relaxing rather than demanding. This certainly describes “Chandelirious” at the Shelburne Museum.

Of course the Shelburne Museum itself, as you might expect in Vermont, is an expansive museum. You walk from one building to the next to see the collections. But the world inside each building is rather intimate. The buildings themselves are quite interesting, too, and the grounds are beautiful.

The Chandelirious exhibit unfolds in an old barn, and you can see the Schonbek chandeliers on this website. There are just 25 chandeliers on display, a very comfortable number to contemplate. Naturally I liked the Schonbek crystal chandeliers best, but I also warmed to the chandelier made out of ping pong balls, and the one made out of plastic cutlery.

The human brain is so creative, really. Designers design things, and then other designers evolve the idea or even satirize the idea, and the whole world of design gets more and more playful. At the same time, the classics remain in the picture, giving resonance to the witty take-offs.

And so even in the outrageous atmosphere of the Chandelirious exhibit, the Renaissance crystal chandelier that’s representative of four or five centuries of classic design still holds its own.

After all, there’s something inherently outrageous about historic crystal chandeliers, too. Was it really necessary to trim them so richly with crystal, and to invent so many different shapes for the crystal ornaments? Probably not. But the wealthy patrons who commissioned these chandeliers and the craftsmen who designed them were carried away by the creative impulse. Designers of old also played endlessly with the form, giving us Versailles type chandeliers, Empire chandeliers, chandeliers with crystal arms as well as ornaments, and many other styles.

Anyway, getting back to Chandelirious, it’s a charming show. If you go, don’t miss the Da Vinci™ LED in the silo.  As a preview, you can watch it change colors on this website. Chandelirious goes on until October 23, so you have plenty of time to plan a visit.