Social uses of candles. An approach with visual materials

States of devotion, sensual romances and esoteric rites are held in the light of the candles. This functional commodity is used as a ritual artifact , incorporated with creativity to social events of dissimilar orientation. In this paper the image used as a resource document has revealed the ubiquity and repetition with which candles are lit in cultural practices as atrezzo and/or metaphor. The analysis of four contemporary frameworks which demonstrate the presence of a candle lighting -Decoration of public places, protest actions, popular mourning and memorials- suggested, on the one hand, the importance of aestheticization processes and on the other hand, the centrality for this expression to evoke remove the symbolic heritage. Both mechanisms -ethics and aesthetics- described conditions of possibility in the activation of human emotions that regulate, imperceptibly, cultural systems in social life.