LAMPS FOR SPRING

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 623, 27 March 1929, Page 7

LAMPS FOR SPRING

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS BESIDE BEAUTY

The realisation that beauty must be slightly emphasised by cosmetics for artificial light will sway the final choice between the many wonderful blues, pearly greys and greens to be found in the new lamp shades. There is an almost bewildering selection, and many beautiful materials are used. Silk and vellum, plush and finely-wrought metals, silver and bronze sets with rare enamels, and parchment painted with sea and landscapes. One group of lamp shades will show old maps and ships, others display delicate old fashion plates, heraldry and coloured prints—and glass—coloured and moulded in many arresting modern designs. Many women make their choice of s new lamp-shade for its sheer beauty, with never a thought for the strain its use may put upon the eyes. It is of no use spending a considerable time each morning with eyebaths, massage and pads soaked in healing lotions if their healing is deliberately undone by working for many hours under an unshaded light. Always remember that a table-lamp must be shaded below eye-level with opaque material, preferably green, of course; and it is important to have sufficient length of flex to allow the lamp to be moved to any point within the room. Unwelcome Glare It seems hardly necessary to say, don't use the shaded light surrounded I by others of the eye-destroying sort, ; but I have actually seen this done. | More than once it has been my un- j happy misfortune to spend a weekend as a suffering but politely silent | guest below an illumination sugges- \ tive of the arc lights of a film studio, j For close study and exacting work, “daylight” lamps of scientifically contrived glass may now be bought, and these give a light of beneficial quality that approximates almost to day- : light itself. A three-decker shade is of softlytinted green glass with a blue \ glass bowl. A tall standard of red lacquer supports a shade showing planes of mauve and yellow tartan | silk, alternated with plain colour. The black and white china pierrot shelters under a glazed silk umbrella of emerald green. Another intriguing tablej lamp of clear crystal glass has a ! fringed shade in grey and orange, vellum, very fresh in form.