I’ve definitely got my eye on the desk lamp incarnation of Miconos, Italian-designer Ernesto Gismondi‘s collection of four exquisitely beautiful little lights, each conceived with an icon’s eye for elegant simplicity. For that matter, I wouldn’t mind the wall-mounted version, either, as it jauntily observes the goings-on from its head-high perch. The pendant lamp would serve me well as well, descending, as it does, to illuminate the proceedings with a cyclopian perspicacity. While I’m at, I’ll just throw in the floor lamp too–it reminds me of a telescoping periscope, rising from the depths to scout the scene.

Miconos. Designed by Ernesto Gismondi for Artemide.

If you’re curious about the proliferation of visual metaphors in the above (if you haven’t noticed, I apparently haven’t done my job), I’ve chosen that particular strain because Gismondi’s Miconos(es) reminds me of an eye. And not just any eye, but the kind of unblinking icon of ubiquitous observation hatched only in certain secretive laboratories (preferably in the mountains of 19th century Transylvania). Yes, there’s something overtly sciency about these lamps, with their perfectly transparent globes of hand-blown glass, simple exposed incandescent bulbs, and stems, bases, and brackets in chrome-plated steel, but that doesn’t mean you should stash your copy of Frankenstein and turn on every blaring fluorescent in the house.

To the contrary, Miconos provides a beautiful, subtle illumination while imparting a decided moodiness to the scene–just the thing for late-night indulgences in gothic novels or grave-robbing yarns. But Gismondi’s lightpiece is versatile as well. Reveling in the beauty of the essential and the spare, Miconos is a fine and functional touch to any decor.

Via Design Milk.