Wall Lighting Of Fact And Film

July 1st, 2010 Posted in Kitchen Lighting

Of all the famous wall sconces in movie history, the most well-known ones of all surely belong to those found in gothic horror flicks.  Typically a flaming torch held in place by an aging metal fixture on the wall, there is usually a wall sconce somewhere in the movie, doing its best supporting the story. 

In one scene it may well serve as mere guide along dark underground paths, then suddenly in another the very weapon which the hero wields, freed from its fixture on the wall in a moment of desperate inspiration.  Regardless of whether Frankenstein’s Monster or Count Dracula, it’s almost guaranteed that a proper scare plus the right mood will involve a flickering wall sconce.

Walls sconces have become such a cliché of the genre that several folks can only regard them in such campy, or even creepy, terms and may even discover real, modern-day sconces unsettling. These kinds of associations are unfortunate since they may be rather charming, as attested by the wall lighting shown in such movies as recall the intricate glories of Bourbon France. Against mirrored hallways, such lighting designs could be really striking, suggesting the heavenly rather than the gothic.

Wall lights these days tend to be less ostentatious and more subdued, but the purposes they serve remain the same: to add variety to décors and help bette calibrate the levels of luminance available to a setting. Contemporary designs favor sleekness and minimalism, in contrast to the rich surpluses of far more baroque styles, but all wall lighting will showcase the interior in a unique way.

For most lighting, whether residential or commercial, has traditionally come from above, from the ceiling, whereas light fixtures such as wall sconces and the like can permit for much far more varied effects to complement, support, or even create on its own interiors and exteriors like no other.