Sunburst Design: Why the Sun Never Left the Wall
Few events bring the Sun back to the centre of conversation quite like a solar eclipse.
In some places the Sun disappears completely; in many others, only in part. Suddenly, everyone has an opinion on the solar corona, weather forecasts and the whereabouts of the nearest unobstructed horizon.
On our walls, however, the sun has never been especially discreet.
For decades, mirrors, clocks, lamps and wall sculptures have repeated the same basic structure: a central form surrounded by rays, leaves, rods or geometric elements.
On our walls, however, the sun has never been especially discreet.
For decades, mirrors, clocks, lamps and wall sculptures have repeated the same basic structure: a central form surrounded by rays, leaves, rods or geometric elements.
We call this visual language sunburst.
Some pieces reflect light.
Others produce it or tell the time.
And some do absolutely nothing except occupy a wall with considerable authority.
Not every sun needs another job.
Sunburst does not describe what an object does. It describes the way its form radiates from the centre.
A Motif, Not a Date
Not every object with rays was made in the 1950s.
Nor did every gilded frame come from a French palace, however many times a seller has written Versailles in the title or added a fleur-de-lis to reassure the undecided.
The solar motif is far too old and universal to belong to a single style. It has appeared in religious, political and decorative settings across many cultures, expressed in wood, stone, metal, glass, ceramics and industrial materials.
Shape alone, therefore, cannot establish the age of a piece.
A contemporary object may be inspired by mid-century design. One made during the mid-twentieth century may revive a much older motif. A third may have left a factory last week with a patina applied with remarkable enthusiasm.
As with the distinction between antique, vintage and retro, the essential question remains the same:
When was the object actually made?
The sun it represents may be eternal.
The object is not.
Before the Sunburst Had a Name
The earliest connection usually takes us back to ancient Egypt.
Many Egyptian mirrors consisted of discs of polished metal. Their handles might take the form of papyrus, associated with life and renewal, or incorporate the head of Hathor, goddess of vitality and daughter of the sun god. The gleaming disc therefore shared some of the Sun’s symbolic language.
That does not make the Egyptian mirror the direct ancestor of modern sunburst design.
There is no documented chain in which an Egyptian craftsman solemnly hands the solar disc to Versailles, Versailles passes it to a French manufacturer, and the manufacturer eventually sends it to a sitting room in 1962.
What survives is not a demonstrable genealogy, but the persistence of an idea.
The luminous circle could represent life, divinity, power, protection and renewal. Different cultures returned to it because the Sun already came with a highly effective symbolic identity.
It required no advertising department.
There is symbolic kinship.
There is no proven family tree.
Versailles and the Man Who Decided to Be the Sun
The association between Louis XIV of France and the Sun, by contrast, is well documented.
Early in his reign, the king adopted the star as his personal emblem. The reference was Apollo, associated with the Sun, the arts and peace. It was also politically convenient: the Sun gave life, followed an orderly course and occupied a centre around which everything else appeared to revolve.
The metaphor was not burdened by excessive modesty.
The king stood at the centre.
The court orbited.
Versailles incorporated this solar language into its sculpture, gardens, ceremonies and decorative programmes. It was not the birthplace of every object surrounded by rays, but it demonstrated how effectively the Sun could express magnificence, authority and order.
To claim that sunburst design began there would be far too simple.
Versailles did not invent the star.
It merely conducted a remarkably successful image campaign.
When the Sun Became Modern
During the twentieth century, and particularly in its middle decades, the solar motif acquired a new visual language.
Its rays became lighter and more graphic. They lengthened, multiplied and gathered into arrangements of leaves, spears, petals and slender rods.
A sunburst could be solemn and gilded, geometric and almost industrial, or so organic that it became difficult to decide whether one was looking at a sun, a flower or a small celestial device whose precise purpose NASA had not yet disclosed.
The radial structure suited the visual optimism of the post-war period: new homes, new materials and domestic objects no longer obliged to conceal their desire to look modern.
It could also turn an ordinary object into a commanding wall presence.
A small mirror ceased to be merely a reflective surface.
A clock did more than tell the time.
A lamp could represent the same light it produced.
And a wall sculpture could abandon practical usefulness altogether without losing any sleep over it.
The motif endured.
The twentieth century simply found it new employment.
One Motif, Many Objects
Sunburst design does not belong to a single category of object.
In a mirror, the centre reflects the room while the rays extend its visual presence beyond the glass.
In a light fitting, the source of illumination occupies the centre and the structure radiates around it. Form and function are so compatible that the result can feel almost inevitable — even when the sun in question appears to have eyes, a nose and a surprisingly complete set of teeth.
In a clock, the hands bring movement to the centre. The absence of numerals on many designs made a certain amount of sense: a glance at the hands was usually enough, and by then many people already wore wristwatches.
The wall clock could now afford to take on a second responsibility.
To tell the time, certainly.
But to do so with presence.
Over the years, many electric clocks have had their original mechanisms replaced with battery-powered quartz movements. The heart may have changed; the character remained.
Then there are the purely decorative pieces: metal discs, radiant structures and abstract compositions that neither reflect nor illuminate nor measure the passing hours.
They simply embody the visual energy of the Sun.
In some objects, the motif accompanies a function.
In others, the form is the entire function.
Vallauris: More Than a Name on the Back
The reverse of some French mid-century sunburst mirrors bears the stamped mark CHATY VALLAURIS A.M.
Chaty was the workshop that produced these decorative metal objects. Vallauris was the town on the French Riviera where it was based, while A.M. refers to Alpes-Maritimes, the French department in which Vallauris is located.
The town has long been associated with pottery and the decorative arts.
Chaty was the workshop that produced these decorative metal objects. Vallauris was the town on the French Riviera where it was based, while A.M. refers to Alpes-Maritimes, the French department in which Vallauris is located.
The town has long been associated with pottery and the decorative arts.
Pablo Picasso lived in Vallauris from 1948 to 1955, further enhancing the town’s artistic reputation.
While some workshops experimented with clay and glazes, others, including Chaty, shaped metal. Vallauris formed part of a creative landscape in which craft, art and design coexisted with particular intensity during the post-war years.
With their radiant metal structures, the sunburst mirrors made by Chaty in Vallauris have become some of the most recognisable French sunburst designs of the mid-twentieth century.
The history of the Chaty workshop is far less thoroughly documented than the popularity of its objects. It is usually wise to listen first to what the pieces and their marks can tell us, rather than to the considerably more imaginative biographies added later.
Picasso helped carry Vallauris into museums.
Chaty helped carry the sun onto walls.
Bringing the Sun Indoors
The lasting appeal of sunburst design cannot be explained simply by nostalgia for the 1950s.
The motif is far older, but the twentieth century gave it a particularly successful domestic form: graphic, sculptural and immediately recognisable.
Round or oval, restrained or theatrical, geometric or botanical, a sunburst introduces the suggestion of light and movement into an otherwise still surface. It can transform an ordinary wall without requiring an imaginary provenance or an optimistic date in the listing title.
During a solar eclipse, the real Sun briefly disappears behind the Moon.
The ones indoors will remain exactly where they are.
The Sun may belong to the sky.
Sunburst design brought it home.