Recently we were rather rude about the big light. In our defence, it started it. But there is another side to the story: sometimes the thing hanging from your ceiling should be gloriously, ridiculously beautiful.
We recently made the case against the big light, accusing it of being too bright and bossy, and generally too much like being unexpectedly summoned into a dentist’s surgery when you were perfectly happy sitting on the sofa.
We stand by all of that…But we may also owe the big light a small apology.
There’s an important distinction between using one enormous overhead light to illuminate an entire room and having one enormous, fabulous thing hanging from the ceiling.
The first can be a bit much, but the second can be absolutely wonderful.
The ceiling is just sitting there
We lavish enormous amounts of attention on walls, floors, furniture, curtains, pictures and shelves. Yet up above there is an entire fifth surface of the room doing almost nothing.
That seems a terrible waste, when you consider that a pendant or chandelier gets to occupy a very important bit of visual territory… It hangs in space with nothing behind it, and it doesn’t need a shelf or a table. It can simply hover there, being beautiful.
So the question really should be: What enormous marvellous thing can we put up there?
A bit of dazzle is good for you
There is a time for understatement, but there’s also a time for pink glass, gleaming brass, stars, globes, tiers, arms, bobbles and anything else that catches the light and makes you look upwards.
A chandelier has always understood something that modern interiors occasionally forget: decoration is allowed to be decorative. It can glitter and shimmer, it can be theatrical.
And it can even be completely unnecessary, in strictly practical terms.
Put some sculpture in mid-air
The best big lights are objects, not fittings… In fact, some are closer to floating sculptures.
That gives them tremendous presence, and also a clear use in interior design. A great pendant can anchor a dining table to the room, or give a centre to an entrance hall, making it a room in its own right. Even quite an ordinary room can gain a moment of architectural drama if there’s something very interesting floating above it.
And it doesn’t even have to be switched on. A beautiful pendant or chandelier can earn its place all day long without producing a single lumen.
In daylight, coloured glass catches the sun and brass gleams…Pleats, arms, drops and globes cast little shadows, so that the shape of the pendant itself becomes part of the room.
Sometimes bigger really is better
There is a natural tendency, particularly in smaller rooms, to think that everything ought to be correspondingly small. But a surprisingly large ceiling light can sometimes do the opposite of what you expect: rather than making the room feel cramped, one bold object can make the whole thing feel more generous.
Obviously there are limits – if your chandelier prevents people getting to the sofa without ducking, you may have overdone it. But otherwise, don’t be afraid of going large. A timid little fitting lost in the middle of a ceiling isn’t necessarily doing a small room any favours.
The big light doesn’t have to do the big job
This is where our two apparently contradictory arguments finally meet.
The big light can be the biggest thing in the room without being responsible for producing most of the light.
Let the lamps and wall lights do some of the gentle evening work, then the chandelier or pendant is free to provide height, shape, sparkle, colour, drama and a bit of showing off.
So yes, by all means turn the big light off occasionally…Just make sure that when you look up, you’re very glad it’s there.