From each of the furniture items, the chair may be the paramount one. While most other pieces (save the bed) are designed to support objects, the chair supports a human form. The term chair is meant to be viewed here in the most common sense, from stool to throne to derivative pieces including the bench and sofa, which might be regarded as extended or connected chairs, and whose character (i.e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining) is not evidently defined.
The social history of the chair is as interesting as its history as a creative art. The chair is not simply a physical support or an aesthetic craft; it historically is semiotic of social placement. In the past royal courts there were significant signifiers between being seated on a chair with arms, on a chair with a back but no arms, or worse having to use a stool. During the last century, a director’s and manager’s chair has developed an indicator of superior rank, and in democratic government meeting the speaker sits on a high-set floor.
In a furniture form, the chair can be used for a wealth of different models. There are chairs created to match man’s age and physical form (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to connotate his standing in society (the executive chair, the throne). Since historical times there were chairs used for birth (birth chairs); since the 20th century, there have been chairs used for ending life (the electric chair). We design chairs with one, two, three, and/or four legs, chairs with or without arms, and chairs with or without backs. We have chairs that can be folded for easy storage, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Our modern lifestyle has designated unique chairs for automobiles and aircraft. Each and every one of these chair kinds have been perfected to match to changing human needs. Because of its unique relationship with man, the chair comes to its full advantage only when in employ. Though it does not make any difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a bureau if there is anything inside or not, a chair is really understood and tested by a person sitting on it, for chair and sitter complement the other. Thus the different parts of the chair were labeled likened to the names of the human body: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the principal role of a chair is to support a human body, its credit is judged firstly by how completely it does measure up to this practical use. Within the structure of the chair, the maker is restricted by the static regulations and principal measurements. Inside these regulations, however, the chair maker has awesome freedom.
The history of the chair lasts over dates of several thousand years. There were cultures that held distinctive chair shapes, as expressive of the leading work in the areas of handling and creativity. From such societies, particular note must be made of ancient Egypt and Greece; China; Spain and The Netherlands in the 17th century; England in the 18th century; and France in the 18th century during the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI.
Egypt
Two ancient Egyptian chair forms, both the objects of masterful make, are known from tomb discoveries. The first one of them is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The classical Egyptian chair would have had four legs crafted like those of a particular animal, a curved seat, and leading to a sloping back supported above vertical stretchers. From this design a durable triangular structure was created. There was to our knowledge no particular differentiation from the structure of Egyptian thrones and chairs for ordinary citizens. The simple variation was in the intricacy of its ornamentation, in the selection of costly inlays. The Egyptian folding stool probably was manufactured to be an easily portable seat for army soldiers. As a camp stool that kind stayed around during much later days. But the stool then was made for the use of a ceremonial seat, its original history as a folding stool simply forgotten. This can today be observed, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, formed in ebony with ivory inlay work and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They were constructed in the form of folding stools but are not able to be folded because the seats are worked from wood. The easy structure of the folding stool, made of two frames that spin on metal bolts and support a seat of leather or fabric held between them, came up some time later as the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most recognisable of this kind is the folding stool, of ashwood, which can now be seen at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The significant Greek chair, the klismos, is found not with any ancient specimen still around but as found in a large amount of pictorial material. The best known is the klismos displayed on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial place in outer Athens (c. 410 BC). The klismos is a chair that had a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of which could be displayed. These creative legs were possibly created in bent wood and were in that case had great pressure under the weight of the sitter. The joints holding the legs to the frame of the seat had to be therefore very strong and were clearly denoted.
The Romans embued the Greek style; quite a few models of seated Romans show examples of a denser and in appearance somewhat less intricately designed klismos. Both designs, the light and heavy, were popularised in the Classicist time. The klismos chair can be seen in French Empire furniture, in English Regency, and in special types of marked uniqueness of Denmark and Sweden around 1800.
China
The history of the chair in China cannot be charted as far back as that of Egypt and Greece. Since the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an unbroken series of drawings and works of art was kept, detailing the inside and exterior of Chinese houses and the designs of furniture. Also kept from the 16th century are a trove of chairs crafted from wood or lacquered wood, that show an interesting similarity to styles of older chairs.
Just as in Egypt, two particular chair forms existed in China: a chair with four legs and a folding stool. That four-legged chair was found both with or without arms though never missing a square seat and straight stiles (vertical side supports) to hold up the back. In one form, it must be said, the stiles were slightly curved on top of the arms in order to sit correctly with the structure of the S-shaped back splat (the basic upright of its back). Each of the three areas had been mortised into the yoke-like top rail. Though the innovation of this back splat later had an influence on English chairs within the Queen Anne period, wooden members that could merely to a restricted limit reinforce corner joints (and are loose in the result) represent a design exclusive to Chinese chairs. The four legs sit through the seat frame, which finishes about the rounded staves. All members are round in section or is given rounded edges—a left over maybe to the bamboo tradition. The seat is not pleasant and may have had a plaited seat. These chairs needed the sitter to be stiff and upright; if too much weight is forced on the back, the chair has a habit of collapsing. In patriarchal Chinese houses of this period armchairs likely were kept only for older people in the family, for they were esteemed greatly.
The Chinese folding stool is thought to have come to China from the West. It does not differ so very much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a change in that the top rail is elegantly fixed to the two legs of the stool in a curved member, which is usually designed with metal mounts. From a Western perspective the overall effect of both of these furniture items is stylized. The construction and decoration elements are combined in a style that is at the same time naïve and refined. The patched up appearance is an outcome of the manner that the individual items do not appear to have been put together by use of either glue or screws, but are mortised with one another and locked into position in the manner of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain during the 17th century also put its signature on the chair. Artworks project a design of chair with a relatively unrefined wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, possessing two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing between, stitched to produce a pattern of small pads. The front board and a similar board at the back could be folded after unscrewing some little iron hooks. Therefore the chair was a portable piece of furniture for traveling which, during the same time, gave the status of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered design of chair is found in engravings of interiors of wealthy Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, and also in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. While this design of chair might also be made in countries in which Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won critical acclaim, it is not determined that the form actually began in The Netherlands. Typically, the legs of the chair are smooth, round in section, and of slender dimensions; they are in some cases baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is clearly a bourgeois piece of furniture and was manufactured in impressive quantities, as can be seen from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which there is a row of those chairs lined up along a wall. The style asserts itself by virtue of its shapely proportions and fine upholstery in gilt leather or fabric framed with fringes.
France and England: 17th and 18th centuries
The French Rococo chair in its most mature style—that was, to say, as created in Paris around 1750—disseminated through most of Europe and was imitated or copied in the mid-20th century. The design owes such popularity to a combination of leisure and charm. The seat suits to the human body and allows a relaxed sitting position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Normally the seat and back are upholstered, and there are small upholstered pads on the armrests. Smooth transitions made between seat frame, legs, and back cover all the joints, which are stable, constructed on craftsmanlike methodology even with the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations thereof are constructed from wood of rather thick density; but each member is deeply molded, all superfluous wood has been sanded away, and more expensive chairs would be further embellished with intricately delicate and decorative woodwork. The wood can be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry can be used for all upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; crosshatched cane is sometimes used as an alternative to upholstery.
English chairs in the 18th century were more open in form than the French. The French manner for stylistic uniformity, which lead from the most distinguished circles in Paris and Versailles through most of France and was popularised in many parts of the Continent, had no parallel in England. Prior to 1740, the most commonly used wood was walnut; thereafter, and for the rest of the century, it was mahogany. Walnut, though beautiful in hue, was soft and therefore less suited to wood carving than to rounded, curving forms. Outer surfaces, such as the back and seat frame, were usually veneered. During the walnut period, highly overstuffed armchairs, covered with leather or embroidered material, were also developed. The best upholstery of this period is precisely and firmly modelled and accentuated by braiding or tacks. When imports of mahogany became common, no specifically new chair designs appeared, but the character of the woodwork changed. Mahogany, having a firmer, closer grain, could be cut thinner, which meant that individual parts of the chair could be more slender in shape. Mahogany also lent itself better to carving than walnut. Carving was concentrated more on the arms and back than on the legs, which as a rule were straight and smooth with chamfered (bevelled) edges and molding. There was a wealth of variety in chairback designs, featuring elegant, pierced, vase-shaped splats or two upright posts connected by horizontal slats (ladderback).
Alongside the French Rococo chair and the best English chairs in walnut and mahogany, the stick-back chair was relatively unaffected by the stylistic changes of the day. Originally a medieval form, known, for example, from paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder and still found in mid-20th century in the churches and inns of southern Europe, the stick-back chair (in all of its variations) consists basically of a solid, saddle-shaped seat into which the legs, back staves, and possibly the armrests are directly mortised. This typically peasant form underwent a renewal and a process of refinement in England and America during the 18th century. Under the name Windsor chair (a term that seems to have been used for the first time in 1731) or Philadelphia chair, it became commonly known and was widely distributed throughout the world.
Late 18th to 20th century
In the Neoclassical period, no basic changes took place in chair forms, but legs became straight and dimensions lighter. Backs in the shape of classical vases replaced the fanciful outlines of the Rococo period. Around 1800, freely executed imitations of Greek and Roman chairs of the klismos type, with curved legs and backrest, appeared. French chairs of the Empire period, executed in dark mahogany and embellished with ornate bronze mounts, created a ponderous effect.
In cheaper brands of inferior workmanship, bourgeois chairs of the 19th century carried on the traditions of the 17th and 18th centuries. The only real innovations were the bentwood (wood that has been bent and shaped) chairs in beech that became popular all over the world and were still made in the 20th century. Around 1900 the continental Art Nouveau and Jugendstil styles (French and German styles characterized by organic foliate forms, sinuous lines, and non-geometric forms), and the Arts and Crafts movement in England (established by the English poet and decorator William Morris to reintroduce idealized standards of medieval craftsmanship), gave rise to original chair designs by Eugène Gaillard in France, Henry van de Velde in Belgium, Josef Hoffman in Austria, Antonio Gaudí in Spain, and Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Scotland. These new furniture styles did not exercise wide, let alone decisive, influence. The Art Nouveau chairs designed by the French architect Hector Guimard, for example, are collector’s pieces, but his name is known to a broader public only because of his fanciful entrances to the Paris Métro.
Modern
After World War I, the Bauhaus school in Germany became a creative centre for revolutionary thinking, resulting, for example, in tubular steel chairs designed by the architects Marcel Breuer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and others. During World War II, the aircraft industry accelerated the development of laminated wood and molded plastic furniture. The dominant chair forms of this period go back to designs by Alvar Aalto, Bruno Mathsson, and Charles and Ray Eames. Rapid technical developments, in conjunction with an ever-increasing interest in human-factors engineering, or ergonomics, purport that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
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