Interior Lighting for Designers

night... sunlight on a tumbling

brook... the heaven full of stars

... birch trees interlaced by a motor
car’s headlights.

Play of brilliants excites the optic

nerves... stimulates the body and

spirit and charms the senses. It cre-

ates a feeling of aliveness, alerts the

mind, awakens curiosity, and sharp-

ens the wits. It quickens the appetite

and heightens all sensations. It can

be distracting or it can be entertain-

ing.

Sparkle is scintillation. It is a tiny

microscopic bombardment of points of

light—the most exciting kind of light

there is. It stimulates and arouses

appetites of all kinds; chandeliers in

dining rooms, sequins on dresses, and

lights on theatre marquees all take

advantage of the fact^1 [figure 2.8].

Outdoors, during daytime, the sky pro-

vides the ambient light. Objects and sur-

faces that are illuminated by the sun, such

as a meadow, trees, or the side of a building,

are the focal glow. The reflection of the sun

from specular surfaces, such as moving

water, dew on leaves, or polished metal on a

building, supplies the sparkle.

At the beach, the ambient light provided

by the sky is balanced by the diffuse,

PSYCHOLOGY

Figure 2.7Focal glow.

(^1) John Marsteller, “A Philosophy of Light: Recalling Rich-
ard Kelly’s Three Functional Elements,”Interior Design
February 1987: 78–80.