Tiffany Lighting – A Search For Beauty
L. C. Tiffany’s memoir, The Artwork of Louis C. Tiffany, tells us that his life was in essence, “a search for beauty,” though it is curiously silent on Tiffany light designs. As a young man he was trained in the arts, and loved to paint. He traveled the world and was inspired by it. A number of early Tiffany lamps, glass, and lighting fixtures show the influence of the Moorish and Byzantine cultures he visited. Upon returned from Africa and the Near East he said was impressed by the preeminence of color in architecture and clothing. Yet, he was also saddened that as a culture, we ignored it in our everyday lives. The brilliant colors later seen in Tiffany style glass pieces and leaded glass lamps are to an extent, a result of these early experiences.
The influence of other cultures and history is especially noticeable in the Tiffany chandeliers and wall sconces photographed in the opulent Havemeyer mansion of 1892. The Byzantine patterns in the bronze work and Tiffany glass drew notice from the well known curator of the L’Art Neauvo gallery, Siegfried Bing. He saw that for Tiffany, glass was the conveyance of color, “Appearing in the form of cabochons, or other varied motifs, in the lighting fixtures, suspension chains, balustrades-in short everywhere.” This is one of the earliest descriptions of Tiffany style lighting.
In the Havemeyer mansion, there were only two known Tiffany table lamps. These had patterned mosaic shades on top, with bronze Japanese bases-in the form of a basket with lizards wrapped around. Here, and with the Queen Anne’s lace design of the Tiffany chandelier in the music room, we find the second great aesthetic influence in his life, that of nature. Though he always had some geometrically patterned and historically influenced work, nature would steadily become the dominate form in Tiffany lights.
The Tiffany exhibition at the 1900 Paris World’s fair marks the beginning of his public transition to nature based themes in his work. Though floral designs had been produced in his lamp shades for a few years, he was still hesitant to show them at exhibitions. Instead, two large Tiffany floor lamps were placed at the front, having both decorative and stylized forms of trees and flowers. But they did not display the more natural realism of the classic Tiffany lamp shades. That would finally be shown to the world two years later at the Turin exhibition of 1902.
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