It was the way it was: our friends, hitherto as softly focused as Lucille Ball in Mame, complaining I kept the dining table too bright, and I going around my own house turning all the dimmers to screeching max. Then I went the eye doctor about what might, in some quarters, have been considered a miracle – I did not need reading glasses any longer and, to cut a long story short, thirteen months and three prescriptions for distance glasses later, not only are our friends in sharp, if Botoxed, focus (even across the dining table) but I can see everything on my plate – if they leave the damned dimmers alone, that is.
I do not understand the need for so-called romantic lighting – Rex Whistler's scenario from my copy of The Konigsmark Drawings apart – but to me all lighting is task lighting, even if that task is creating a mood. It is my distinct opinion, and one I want to have chiseled into every restaurant designer's black heart, that romance does not equate with blindness. Overall, so formulaically dim is restaurant lighting in this city, and so little relation does it seem to have to the physical spaces (the metaphysical I shall leave out of the argument) I've begun to wonder if "design," beyond the necessary calculations, is even part of the equation.
Oddly enough, restaurant lighting is only peripheral to my thoughts today, for what I'm most concerned about is not just lighting what I'm reading but, increasingly, where I find it easier to read. My iPad, easy to read wherever I am, is not part of this because it makes its own light. The two books here and the one I recommended a few weeks ago, The Interiors of Chester Jones, (still a book occupying my thoughts) are not easy to read in either of the ways I have until recently preferred – flat on my back on the sofa or with the book on my lap as I sit. What I have found is that our dining table is becoming my preferred place to read large books. In the morning, the rising sun floods the table, making any book and a cup of coffee a splendid way to begin the day and thanks to the Celt's refusal to have a chandelier blocking the view of his favorite art, there are downlighters that illuminate the pages if the day is dark.
Houghton Hall: Portrait of an English Country House by David Cholmondeley and Andrew Moore is an excellent read. Beautifully photographed, in the main by Derry Moore, and fluently written, it is a substantive (to use a dear friend's favorite adjective) book worth buying and reading. Guaranteed to make any expatriate homesick for a visit to the old homestead or a toddle down the lane in the rain. It is a magnificent house beautifully cared for, and it is wonderful that finally there is a book worthy of it. There's a beautiful photograph towards the end of the book of the owner, his wife and their whippet, in warm shades of gray. Super.
A friend who'd visited with the subject of the book loaned me her copy of One Man's Folly: The Exceptional Houses of Furlow Gatewood by Julia Reed with a Foreword and Afterword by Bunny Williams. It is a very pleasant book and I'm glad I didn't buy it.
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Oh, the dagger to the heart, your last sentence, which made me smile, and hear your voice saying it. Love your dining table and chairs (they are your, yes?), as well as your description of sitting at table and reading in morning light. My favorite time of day actually, before anything must get done. A agree with Celt: a chandelier would kill not only the view, but the frisson between the table and chairs.
ReplyDeleteDaniel James Shigo, thank you.
ReplyDeleteThe dining room is ours and today when it's more about the wintry blast rather than the light from the east I'm staying out of it. I do love sitting there especially after dinner when the table is cleared and there's just the wine and the conversation left – then the light's may dim a little.
You caught the essence of my aesthetic "the frisson between the table and chairs" as I love to combine the old with the new, the machine-made with the rustic, etc – nothing special as aesthetics go but I do like the contrast.
Regarding atmospheric lighting in restaurants---there ought to be a distinction between softly illuminated rooms and those whose lighting is just plain murky. The problem of course, whether in a restaurant or at home, is " top lighting", or overhead lighting, which can destroy whatever beauty is left on the faces of guests or for that matter the charms of the room itself. I once attended a large party at which the host in a misguided frame of mind had replaced all the lamps and overhead fixtures with 250 watt bulbs. It had a stultifying effect on even the most practised socialites. Conversation was strained. And everyone looked like hell!
ReplyDeleteBut to return to the effect of ceiling lights, it more or less equates with the effect of sunlight at noon vs sunlight at 4 pm---and every painter of landscapes knows which direction of the sun enhances the view.
Toby Worthington, thank you. The older one becomes the less light one's eyes take in and the way a space (the world, it seems to me, sometimes) is lit can cause problems for the increasingly poor-sighted. Glare, not just from overhead fittings though they are notorious for causing it, but from surfaces too, is something I suffer from wherever I go, and the darker the space the more likely I am to have a problem. I am now poor-sighted and believe me I appreciate sensible lighting that allows one to move around a space without being led by a hostess with a flashlight or requires me to use a "flashlight" app on my phone to read a menu. A flickering candle on the table is wondrously atmospheric but little use for reading fine print.
DeleteLighting restaurants, or houses for that matter, does not have to be bright or overly dramatic as long as all ages are able to function well. It's that universality of design that is lacking and if I may be cynical for a second, probably by intention.
Lighting is such a personal thing. I prefer everything to be at 10 watts (other than bathroom and kitchen) and luckily Bob agrees. I'm sure people find themselves lost when they come to visit but it's how we feel most comfortable.
ReplyDeleteI think "It is a very pleasant book and I'm glad I didn't buy it" made my day. Diplomatic but TOTALLY GOTCHA....... THATS a book review! Enough said.
ArchitectDesign, thank you. I once knew a decorator who used one 25watt bulb per room and thought it the bees knees.
DeleteAs to the 10 watt bulb: I don't know how to react. Is that one per room? I shan't ask anything else in case I offend – I feel I'm in the dark, as it were.
TEN watts? Stefan, surely you jest.
DeleteEven I, vain as I am, think that is going too far!
However I think a chandelier would add another layer...modern or traditional though? that is the question.
ReplyDeleteFor me a wonderful piece dripping with rock crystal and fake candles with those lovely wobbly imitation flames that flicker so fascinatingly after a glass of port. It's never going to happen, of course
Delete10 watts but MANY OF THEM. I like multiple light sources. So there may be 10 in one room -but they're 10 watts. It's dim admittedly. I believe in task lighting though - a stronger lamp beside the bed and beside chairs for reading -but the rest of the lighting is a dim glow (which we think is lovely!). Light where you need it.
ReplyDeleteI do like a little mood lighting around my house at night as it is easier on the eyes than glaring lights.
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed the HH book. I attended a lecture on the opening day of the exhibit that landed in town last month, but I've yet to blog about it. I think you may have enjoyed it.
Chronica Domus, thank you. I'm at the point where our lighting is going to be revised and redone. Our library, lit for reading and watching television, is easier on the eyes and I want the rest of the place to be as livable.
DeleteI wish I could have attended the lecture but ....
With cataracts the lighting is almost always wrong. Bulbs at or near eye level - misery. Candles against a dark background - total misery. But the very worst lighting is in open houses - ones for sale - which by real-estate-agent-law must all be on and dialed to the brightest setting. And of course there are the restaurants.
ReplyDeleteTerry, thank you. You're right about cataracts making everything wrong about lighting and I fully agree with you about realtor lighting. What do they think they are doing? Every light blazing in full sunlight is crazy but seemingly the way it is done.
DeleteThat reminds me and y'all must know the "secret" to this. In June I attended a fashion show at MOCA, Atlanta's Museum of Contemporary Art. They had the room lit very bright and very warm, not art gallery lighting. Though it was rather tough on my eyes, it made everybody - models and spectators alike - and their clothes look absolutely fantastic. I've never seen anything like it. But I don't get invited to many fashion shows.
ReplyDeleteI think Terry that was halogen lighting and it's designed professionally to give the result you describe – make everything look fantastic. ADAC showrooms use it and it's the reason why nothing looks the same when we get it home.
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