Out of each of the furniture objects, the chair might be paramount. While most of the other pieces (except the bed) are created to support objects, the chair supports your human form. The term chair is meant to be looked upon here in the widest sense, from stool to throne to complex kinds such as the bench or 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 distinuishable.
The social history of the chair is as intriguing as its history as a creative craft. The chair is not just a physical support or an aesthetic object; it was historically a symbol of social rank. Within the historical royal courts there were important distinctions between being seated on a chair with arms, or a chair with a back but without arms, or worse having to use a stool. From the last century, the director’s or manager’s chair has developed an indicator of superior status, and in democratic government debate the speaker sits on an elevated platform.
In its furniture purpose, the chair encompasses a variety of different purposes. There are chairs manufactured to attend to man’s age and physical form (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to indicate his rank in society (the executive chair, the throne). Since historical times there were chairs used for birthing (birth chairs); from the 20th century, there have been chairs for ending life (the electric chair). We make 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 and put away, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Modern living has demanded unique chairs for automobiles and aircraft. Each and every one of these chair types have evolved to match to different human needs. Due to its significant importance with man, the chair exists to its full meaning only when in use. Although it does not make a difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a dresser drawers if there might be things inside or not, a chair is seen best and judged by a person using it, for chair and sitter suit one another. Thus the various parts of a chair have been named like the areas of the human form: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the basic purpose of your chair is to support a human body, its worth is valued firstly by how well it measures up to this practical job. In the structure of the chair, the chair maker is bound by the static regulation and principal measurements. Within these boundaries, however, the chair builder has large freedom.
The history of the chair covers an era of several thousand years. There are civilizations that had iconic chair shapes, expressions of the topmost task in the arenas of skill and design. Among these such societies, special note needs to 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 lives of Louis XV and Louis XVI.
Egypt
Two ancient Egyptian chair forms, both the result of expert scheme, are now known from tomb discoveries. The first of these two is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The classical Egyptian chair has four legs structured similar to those of a designated animal, a curved seat, and with a sloping back supported from vertical stretchers. In this way a strong triangular structure was obtained. There appears to be no notable variation between the creation of Egyptian thrones and chairs for regular citizens. The real difference exists in the complexity of ornamentation, in the choice of expensive inlays. The Egyptian folding stool in all probability was made to be an easily portable seat for army. As a camp stool the chair continued during much later points in time. But the stool also then was designed as the task of a ceremonial seat, its original function as a folding stool being forgotten. This can today be seen, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, crafted in ebony with ivory inlay ornamentation and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They are in the form of folding stools but can not be folded as the seats were made out of wood. The simplistic manufacture of the folding stool, composed of two frames that rotate on metal bolts and support a seat of leather or fabric fastened between them, is seen again somewhat later from the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most recognisable of this type is the folding stool, made from ashwood, which is now seen at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The typical Greek chair, the klismos, is known not in any ancient object still in form but as found in a trove of pictorial material. The archetype is the klismos displayed on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial location just out of Athens (c. 410 BC). This klismos is a chair that had a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, only two of those legs can be seen. These unusual legs were probably executed with bent wood and were in that case had huge pressure under the weight of the sitter. The joints joining the legs to the frame of the seat would have had to be therefore very solid and were particularly indicated.
The Romans adopted the Greek design; quite a few statues of seated Romans display evidence of a denser and are a somewhat crudely crafted klismos. Both kinds, light and heavy, were brought back within the Classicist time. The klismos chair is used in French Empire design, in English Regency, and in some particular brands of notable uniqueness in Denmark and Sweden during 1800.
China
The history of the chair in China is not able to be traced as far back as the progression of the chairs in Egypt and Greece. From the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an undamaged collection of images and paintings had been kept safe, detailing the inside and exteriors of Chinese buildings and the kinds of furniture. Also kept of the 16th century are a trove of chairs constructed from wood or lacquered wood, that hold an intriguing similarity to representations of past chairs.
Just like in Egypt, there existed two iconic chair designs in China: a chair of four legs and a folding stool. This chair was constructed both with or without arms but always having a square seat and straight stiles (vertical side supports) to support the back. In one style, it has been seen, the stiles could be delicately curved by the arms so as to sit right with the form of the S-shaped back splat (the main upright of the chairback). Each of the three parts had been mortised onto the yoke-like top rail. While the style of a back splat then had an influence on English chairs within the Queen Anne period, wooden items that could only to a restricted capability embolden corner joints (and were loose in the result) indicate a signature signatory to Chinese chairs. The four legs pass through the seat frame, which closes over the rounded staves. All the members are round in section or possesses rounded edges—referable perhaps to the bamboo tradition. The seat is uncomfortable and may have a plaited bottom. These chairs demanded of the sitter to hold themselves stiff and upright; if too much weight is pushed on the back, the chair has a habit of toppling over. In patriarchal Chinese households of this period armchairs most likely were kept for senior people, for they were given great respect.
The Chinese folding stool is thought to have taken to China from the West. It is not dissimilar that much from the Egyptian and Scandinavian folding stools, but it has a change in that the top rail is prettily affixed to the two legs of the stool in a curved member, which is more often than not provided with metal mounts. From a Western point of view the resultant effect of both these furniture forms is stylized. The manufacture and aesthetic elements are combined in a manner that is simultaneously naïve and refined. The pieced-together appearance is an upshot of the manner that the individual members do not seem to have been adjoined with either glue or screws, but are mortised into one another and locked into its place in the style of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain in the 17th century also put its signature on the chair. Works of art project a kind of chair with a relatively crude wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, consisting of two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing between, stitched to produce a pattern of tiny pads. The front board and a similar board at the back could be folded after loosening some small iron hooks. Thus the chair was an easily portable piece of furniture for traveling which, at the same time, granted the dignity of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered design of chair can be displayed in engravings of the interior of wealthy Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, and in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. Although this type of chair may also be made in countries where Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won critical acclaim, it is not determined that the style actually started in The Netherlands. Usually, the legs of the chair are smooth, round in section, and of thin shape; they are in some cases baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is obviously a bourgeois piece of furniture and was crafted in impressive amounts, as can be seen from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which there is an entire row of such chairs lined up along a wall. The design asserts itself by virtue of its elegant proportions and delicate upholstery in gilt leather or fabric framed with fringes.
France and England: 17th and 18th centuries
The French Rococo chair in its most mature of styles—that is to say, as developed in Paris around 1750—conquered most of Europe and has been imitated or copied during the mid-20th century. The model owes the popularity to a combination of leisure and charm. The seat conforms to the human body and permits a relaxed sitting position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Usually the seat and back are upholstered, and there are little upholstered pads over the armrests. Smooth transitions are made between seat frame, legs, and back conceal all the joints, which are solidly constructed on craftsmanlike methodology despite the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations thereof use wood of relatively thick density; but all members are deeply molded, all superfluous wood has been cut away, and more expensive items may be further embellished with very delicate and decorative engraving. The wood can be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry may be used for all the upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; cane is occasionally used as an alternative to upholstery.
English chairs from the 18th century were more open in style than the French. The French preference for stylistic uniformity, which came from the highest circles in Paris and Versailles through most of France and became the favourite 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 reknowned and was widely distributed throughout the world.
Late 18th to 20th century
During 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 styles 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, indicate that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
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