Ariette 2

Imaginative lighting is a longtime hallmark of modern Italian design. Following in the footsteps of innovative companies such as Artemide and Arteluce, the company FLOS brought a fresh aesthetic philosophy to the Italian lighting field in the 1960s, one that would produce several of the iconic floor lamp, table lamp and pendant light designs of the era.

FLOS — Latin for “flower” — was founded in the northern town of Merano in 1962 by Cesare Cassina (of the famed Cassina furniture-making family) and Dino Gavina, a highly cultured businessman who believed that artistic ideas espoused in postwar Italy could inform commercial design. The two enlisted brothers Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni as their first designers.

Even before FLOS was formally incorporated, the Castiglionis gave the firm one of its enduring successes with the Taraxacum pendant and associated designs made by spraying an elastic polymer on a metal armature. (George Nelson had pioneered the technique in the United States in the early 1950s.) For other designs, the brothers found inspiration in everyday objects. Suggestive of streetlights, their Arco floor lamp, with its chrome boom and ball-shaped shade sweeping out from a marble block base, has become a staple of modernist decors. Designing for FLOS since 1966, Tobia Scarpa has also been inspired by the commonplace. His folded-metal Foglio sconces resemble a shirt cuff; his carved marble Biagio table lamp looks like a jai alai basket.

In 1973, FLOS purchased Arteluce, the company founded in 1939 by Gino Sarfatti, and it continues to produce his designs. In recent decades, FLOS has contracted work from several noted designers, including Marcel Wanders and Jasper Morrison. As instantly recognizable as they are, many FLOS designs remain accessible. While FLOS lighting is the essence of modernity, its sleek, subtle designs can be used to strike a sculptural note in even traditional spaces.

Browse a broad range of FLOS lighting fixtures at 1stDibs.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw sweeping social change and major scientific advances — both of which contributed to a new aesthetic: modernism. Rejecting the rigidity of Victorian artistic conventions, modernists sought a new means of expression. References to the natural world and ornate classical embellishments gave way to the sleek simplicity of the Machine Age. Architect Philip Johnson characterized the hallmarks of modernism as “machine-like simplicity, smoothness or surface [and] avoidance of ornament.”

Early practitioners of modernist design include the De Stijl (“The Style”) group, founded in the Netherlands in 1917, and the Bauhaus School, founded two years later in Germany.

Followers of both groups produced sleek, spare designs — many of which became icons of daily life in the 20th century. The modernists rejected both natural and historical references and relied primarily on industrial materials such as metal, glass, plywood, and, later, plastics. While Bauhaus principals Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe created furniture from mass-produced, chrome-plated steel, American visionaries like Charles and Ray Eames worked in materials as novel as molded plywood and fiberglass. Today, Breuer’s Wassily chair, Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair — crafted with his romantic partner, designer Lilly Reich — and the Eames lounge chair are emblems of progressive design and vintage originals are prized cornerstones of collections.

It’s difficult to overstate the influence that modernism continues to wield over designers and architects — and equally difficult to overstate how revolutionary it was when it first appeared a century ago. But because modernist furniture designs are so simple, they can blend in seamlessly with just about any type of décor. Don’t overlook them.

From the kitchen to the bedroom and everywhere in between, there is one major part of home decor that you definitely want to master: lighting. It’s no longer merely practical — carefully selected wall lights and sconces can do wonders in establishing mood and highlighting your distinctive personality.

We’re a long way from the candelabra-inspired chandeliers of the medieval era. Lighting designers have been creating and reinventing lighting solutions for eons. Because of the advancements crafted by these venturesome makers, we now have the opportunity to bring unique, customizable lighting solutions into our homes. It’s never been easier to create dramatic bedrooms, cozy kitchen areas and cheerful bars than it is today. Think of an elegant wall sconce as functional as well as a work of art, adding both light and style to your hallways, whimsical kids’ rooms and elsewhere.

When choosing a lighting solution, first determine what your needs are: Will you opt for a moody or a bright feel? The room that will serve as your home office will need adequate lighting — think “the brighter, the better” for this particular setting. For the bedroom, bedside wall lamps with warm-temperature bulbs could be the way to go to induce a sense of calm or intimacy. Try to match the style of the wall light or sconce that you’re installing to the overall design scheme of your room. It’s never “just a light.” You should approach the lighting of a room with a mindset that is one part practical and one part aesthetics-driven.

Let 1stDibs help you set the mood with the right wall lights and sconces for your home. Our collection includes every kind of fixture, from sculptural works by Austrian craftsman J.T. Kalmar to chic industrial-style wall sconces, from adjustable painted aluminum wall lamps designed by Artemide to a wide variety of minimalist mid-century modern masterpieces.