For carrying about, a candlestick needs the addition of a broad dish-like stand and handle, while the stick itself is kept low; hardly so attractive a form as the stationary columnar table candlestick, and yet having decided character and purpose of its own.
Those old-fashioned and most picturesque companions of candlesticks, the snuffers, are often very beautiful in design, and it seems to me that, however "improved," the wicks of modern candles still require some attention from them.
The necessity of protecting light affords in lanterns opportunities for the inventive adaptability of the designer in glass and metal.
I met with a very pretty and original motive in a German museum (at Lindau) which was hexagonal in form, pieces of glass fitted together by leads forming a globe-like body to hold the light, and terminating above in a neck, from which it hung to a bracket by a ring. It was furnished with a tripod stand in iron, so that it could be taken down and made to stand if needed.
There is plenty of room for invention in lanterns, and it seems a pity that our street lamp, which is practically a standard lantern, should remain so extremely prosaic, when it is a design so constantly repeated. It is not so much the plainness, since one needs no extraneous ornament if the purpose is well served by a structure of good lines. The necessity of cleaning the glass is probably a hindrance to much variety of form in the present state of things, and then, too, the electric light is coming into general use, bringing with it an entirely fresh set of conditions, so that before we get our ideal gas-lamp the necessity for it will probably have disappeared altogether, so to speak.
LAMPS, CANDLESTICK, AND SNUFFERS.
MODERN (BENSON) LAMP.
GERMAN LANTERN
(LINDAU).
ROMAN LAMP.
ANTIQUE CANDELABRUM & LAMP
(HERCULANEUM).
PRIMITIVE BRASS LAMP
(HOLLAND).
BRASS SNUFFERS
(VENICE).
BRASS CANDLESTICK
(BRUGES).
The idea of suspension and absence of rigidity or weight associated with electric lighting ought, one would think, to be suggestive to designers, but we don't seem yet to have quite shaken off the conditions of gas tubing on the one hand, or to have got much beyond the somewhat well-worn idea of bell-flowers bursting into incandescence on the other. One almost prefers the naked simplicity of the little pear-shaped glasses, with their incandescent twist of thread suspended at the end of the covered wires, to the flamboyant excesses in brass and copper electric fitting sometimes seen.
One might go on through the whole range of objects of domestic use, and multiply instances of beauty and designing invention applied to the humblest utensil, implement, or accessory, and suggested by the characteristic features stamped upon its form by the necessities and demands of daily use, which must never be lost sight of by the artist. Not a single thing that we touch or use but has had an enormous amount of human thought and ingenuity brought to bear upon it, which has determined its form as we see it, and which is constantly modifying form and material and character.