Porcelain Lamps: Art of Light

Anyone can illuminate a room simply enough, but the style of your lamps says something about you, too. In addition, if there is one material that lends itself to hundreds of style statements, from understatement to come-right-out-and-say-it-loud, it is porcelain.

Porcelain lamps are as variable as their owners. They can be shaped into hundreds of base styles, painted in hundreds of patterns and shades, and depending on the lamp shades applied they can yield anything from a soft accent to a strong aesthetic pronouncement.

Speaking strictly in utilitarian terms, porcelain is considered one of the strongest electric insulators. Usually this refers to outdoors, but it will not hurt to have that protection indoors as well. Aesthetically, you will not find as many materials that do the double job of keeping the electricity from shocking you and accenting your room with any one of a score of images, accents, or eye candies.

You are buying lamps to give you light but also to add something pleasant to the look of your rooms. If all you wanted was light, you can hang a naked fixture or festoon the room with candles. The former is just raw utility; the latter is atmosphere without art. There is plenty to be said for raw utility or atmosphere, but there is even more to say about works of art. Lamps are art works in their way. Moreover, few have the aesthetic versatility of porcelain lamps.

Glancing around the selections you will probably find the jar and vase shapes the most popular, whether you are looking for an antique porcelain lamp, a simple contemporary porcelain table lamp, a classic blue-and-white porcelain lamp, or a pure, Chinese porcelain lamp. They always look right, they always shade well, and they always accent your room with simplicity. Some are more elaborately designed or painted than others, of course, but you should not have a lot of hunting to do to find a jar or vase shaped porcelain.

However, the variations are just as arresting. You may bump into a teapot-shaped porcelain table lamp that is just as arresting an accent on your breakfast nook. You might find an iconic style porcelain lamp—with clean or no lines, with single color, with variable densities—and discover it is just as pleasing to the eye, in terms of its own appearance and the manner in which it conducts your light, as the bolder jars and vases.

In addition, if you are an animal lover, you will find many porcelain lamps shaped like your favorite creatures, from horses and unicorns to dogs and cats. They can be presented as conservatively or as artistically as you like; there is no single lampshade color or style considered proper for a good porcelain lamp, depending on the base shape and accents.