A wall sconce can do more than push back the dark. Its shade may hold a painted scene, a row of blue windmills turning in place above a hallway or beside a bed.
The picture is small enough to miss in full daylight. It waits for the switch, when the bulb warms the glass and the little landscape comes forward.
This is not a light for reading or for finding a lost earring. It is a light for the moment before sleep, when the room quiets and the eye rests on something still.
Let the scene stay simple. A few brushstrokes, a pale sky, a row of structures that do not move. The pleasure is in the noticing, not in the story.
