Tiffany
Lamp History
Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933)
Biography of Louis Comfort Tiffany
(I)
Louis Comfort Tiffany, one of the most creative and influential
designers of the century, was born in New York in 1848 and lived
until 1933. He was the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany, the legendary
founder of the silver and jewel firm, Tiffany and Co., the
highly regarded jewelry retailer.
Although his father had founded the most prestigious company in the
United States, Louis Comfort chose to pursue his love of art instead
of following in the family business. He studied landscape painting
with Philadelphia artist, George Inness and painted oils and watercolors
in Europe and Morocco. In 1879 he opened Tiffany
Studios, an interior
design firm that quickly became the arbiter of good taste in New York
high society as the Victorian era reached its zenith. In business less
than a decade, Tiffany landed the plum commission to redecorate two
rooms of the White House, the Red and Blue Rooms.
Tiffany's aesthetic was based on his conviction that nature should be
the primary source of design inspiration. Intoxicated by color, he
translated into glass the lush palette found in flowers and plants.
This fascination with nature and with extending the capabilities of
the medium led to the exploration of another technique-in 1893
Tiffany introduced his first blown-glass vases and bowls, called
"Favrile," whose name, he declared, was taken from an old English
word for hand made. Favrile glass quickly gained international
renown for its surface iridescence and brilliant colors, which
launched the firm into the stained glass window business.
Tiffany wanted to bring decorative arts to the same status as fine
arts. The lamps of Louis Comfort Tiffany signify this quest to bring
beauty into the home. After collaborating to light the first movie
theatre, friend Thomas Edison, who was installing the first electric
lights in the first movie theatre, (the Lyceum), suggested the idea
of making electric fixtures. Tiffany soon began to create lamps as
small versions of his exquisite stained-glass windows and developed
the idea into a new art form. Tiffany's lamps were and still are
recognized for their superior design and handcrafted details.
Though Tiffany seldom actually made the lamps themselves, his designs,
often based upon his studies as a landscape painter, were rendered by
company craftsmen to his exacting specifications. From there, the designer
ventured into the production of vases, shades, and glassware. His designs
often included zodiacal figures, medieval motifs, and Renaissance figures.
The motifs in Tiffany's elaborate lamps were inspired by his love of
nature. Some patterns featured in The Lamps of Tiffany include: dragonflies,
the tracery of spiderwebs, dogwoods, peacock feathers and peonies.
Louis Comfort Tiffany stated that his lamps allowed more people to enjoy the elements of nature,
such as flowers in bloom, all year long in the beauty of his glass. Often,
the designs were so complex they were impossible to fabricate in glass.
Estimates are that only about one in a hundred actually found its way into
a handmade work of stained glass art.
Cont
|
