Friday, December 7, 2007

The Rose crystal chandelier might be taken as a metaphor for love.

Obviously the design is romantic, but its 32 variations make it a particularly apt symbol of romance.

Romantic love has many moods. Since, ideally, it involves two people being together as much and as long as possible, the quality of the love between them is going to undergo many challenges and changes.

I see The Rose in Opal Rose as a symbol of love in its most uncomplicated form. First love, puppy love, that sort of thing. The sheer pinkness of this crystal chandelier has a delightful innocence.

The Rose with a crystal color palette of Midsummer Night’s Dream captures the complexity of ripening love. I think of a couple going to movies together, reading books and comparing notes, having discussions about the meaning of life – all this made especially fascinating because of their attraction to each other.

The Rose with varying degrees of black crystal gets sophisticated. Black is chic, even in the realm of romance. I think of beautiful people conducting their courtship in chic places, always dressed in the latest fashion. Or perhaps the black crystal introduces a note of melancholy, loved faced with mortality.

Of course no one who admires The Rose needs to think about this crystal chandelier symbolically. The fact that it comes in so many combinations of crystal colors and finishes means that one’s main concern is to choose the perfect palette for one’s décor.

The Rose (like all Schonbek crystal chandeliers) is made in the U.S.A. Schonbek is able to offer 32 variations because the factory is here in America, not across a vast ocean. Every rendition of The Rose is made to order, and that would not be feasible if it were mass produced abroad and transported in volume by containership.

If you have an old-fashioned taste for works of excellent craftsmanship made in America, The Rose should delight you.

The Rose when it becomes your Rose is a highly individual expression of your personality. Love is like that too.

Thursday, December 6, 2007

There’s a new room image on the website featuring a Da Vinci™ crystal chandelier.

The room is a prime example of eclecticism. Sofa and coffee table are ever so sleek and contemporary. But those little armchairs surely hark back a couple of centuries or more. The wall art is a reproduction of “Napoleon Crossing the Alps” by nineteenth-century French neoclassicist Jacques Louis David. The crystal chandelier, being perfectly round and dazzlingly bright, is suggestive of a celestial body. As such it is outside time. Then again, Da Vinci™ is also totally trendy, being the world’s first dishwasher safe crystal chandelier. It’s time is now.

Eclecticism has given us all permission to indulge our whims, choose whatever pleases us in the way of furnishings – and collect all these diverse objects together within one space. Of course they have to be compatible at some level. I really think it helps, in a space that incorporates diverse objects and plays with visual tension, to have some focal point emanating serenity. In this room, the serenity comes from the Da Vinci™.

This would probably be the case in any room. A perfectly round object filled with light is somehow deeply reassuring. It reminds us that the same moon that inspired Japanese poets to write haiku and aided and abetted people falling in love since time immemorial is still shining on us.

Jacques Louis David was an idealist. Idealism has often led people astray in the course of history. But it can also lead to the creation of amazing objects of beauty. The invention of Da Vinci™ came about from an idealistic desire on the part of Andrew Schonbek to create a perfectly round crystal chandelier. An individual crystal gem, after all, is faceted and not smooth. So it was no mean feat to combine and position thousands of these glittering jewels to achieve a pristine sphere of spectral brilliance.

You can find a showroom that carries Da Vinci™ crystal chandeliers in a listing on this website.

Monday, December 3, 2007

The Schonbek design portfolio is so diverse that sometimes I happen upon a crystal chandelier or wall sconce that I forgot existed. I think I know every product in every catalog, but apparently not.

Today I came across an image on this website of The Rose crystal wall sconce. I’m completely charmed by it.

In appreciating The Rose, I’ve concentrated mostly on the crystal chandeliers. I’ve always been fascinated by those elongated crystal teardrops or raindrops that have the look of a drop of water in slow motion as it’s swelling and about to fall. With The Rose you have the fun of exploring crystal palettes and finishes amounting to 32 variations. I’ve often run my eye over those 32 variations, trying to pick a favorite and changing my mind every time out.

And so with all that variety distracting me, I never even noticed the crystal wall sconce.

To anyone with a taste for nostalgia, this dainty wall sconce has a lot to recommend it. Like a rose in Nature, it’s quite lush, with layer upon layer of crystal beads and leaves and drops. Yet in spite of this wealth of crystal, it has a rather small footprint. Being eight inches in diameter and twelve and a half inches long, it requires only a small patch of wall.

Old houses often have small rooms, and a couple of wall sconces like The Rose can totally transform a petite guest room. You might put them in a bathroom, too, but they emanate more romance than light, so you’ll need a boost from some recessed lighting.

If you do decide to put The Rose wall sconces in a bedroom, you should seriously consider complementing them with The Rose lamps for your bedside tables. These lamps are actually crystal candelabra peeping out from behind gauzy lampshades. Needless to say you can match the crystal palette and finish precisely to your wall sconces.

You can study your color options on this website, but for the real experience, visit a lighting showroom that carries Schonbek. If you’re not sure where to go, call Schonbek at 800-836-1892.