Out of all furniture objects, the chair could be the primary one. While most of the other pieces (save the bed) are intended to support objects, the chair supports your human form. The term chair is intended to be looked upon here in the most open sense, from stool to throne to further forms for example a bench and sofa, which may be viewed as extended or connected chairs, and whose character (i.e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining) is not obviously distinuishable.
The social history of the chair is as exciting as its history as an art and craft. The chair is not only a physical support and/or aesthetic piece of art; it historically is an indicator of social place. At the Medieval royal courts there were significant signifiers between sitting on a chair with arms, or a chair with a back but without arms, or worse having to cope with a stool. During the recent century, the director’s and manager’s chair has been regarded as an indicator of superior status, as well as in democratic government debate the speaker sits on an elevated floor.
As its furniture form, the chair ranges from a range of variations. There are chairs manufactured to attend to man’s age and physical condition (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to show his status in society (the executive chair, the throne). During the olden days there were chairs to be born in (birth chairs); from the 20th century, there have been chairs 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. There are chairs that can be folded and put away, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Our lifestyle has demanded particular chairs for use in automobiles and aircraft. All of these chair kinds have adapted to conform to differing human requirements. For its particular link with man, the chair comes to its full meaning only when in use. Though it makes no difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a set of drawers whether there might be things inside or not, a chair is understood and fairly judged with a person sitting on it, for chair and sitter suit one another. Thus the different limbs of a chair were named according to the areas of our human shape: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the obvious job of your chair is to support a human body, its worth is evaluated primarily on how completely it does measure up to this practical purpose. In the build of the chair, the builder is bound under some static legislation and principal measurements. Under these rules, however, the chair designer has extensive freedom.
The history of the chair extends over a period of several thousand years. There were civilizations that made unique chair shapes, expressive of the topmost object in the arenas of handling and creativity. From these such societies, special note can 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 construct of careful make, are today known from tomb discoveries. The first of these is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The original Egyptian chair would have four legs formed like those of some animal, a curved seat, and with a sloping back supported from vertical stretchers. In this way a strong triangular design was obtained. There was from our view no particular difference in the design of Egyptian thrones and chairs for common peasantry. The general variation was in the complex ornamentation, in the selection of expensive inlays. The Egyptian folding stool probably was created as an easily packed seat for soldiers. As a camp stool the stool continued during much later days. But the stool also took on the purpose of a ceremonial seat, its original job as a folding stool fast forgotten. This can already be found, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, created in ebony with ivory inlay ornamentation and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They are constructed in the form of folding stools but are not able to be folded because the seats are formed with wood. The plain construction of the folding stool, consisting of two frames that spin on metal bolts and have a seat of leather or fabric held between them, then came up but some time later as the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most recognised of this type is the folding stool, made out of ashwood, which is now found at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The unique Greek chair, the klismos, is known not from any ancient specimen still existing but as in a large amount of pictorial objects. The best recognised is the klismos seen on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial place near Athens (c. 410 BC). The klismos is a chair that had a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of them can be shown. These unusual legs were likely to have been crafted with bent wood and were likely to have been had to bear great pressure under the weight of the sitter. The joints attaching the legs to the frame of the seat are therefore extremely solid and were plainly pointed out.
The Romans embued the Greek style; evidence of statues of seated Romans show chairs of a heavier and apparently somewhat crudely designed klismos. Both styles, the light and heavy, were popularised in the Classicist time. The klismos chair is found in French Empire design, in English Regency, and in some particular brands of notable uniqueness within Denmark and Sweden during 1800.
China
The past of the chair in China is not able to be traced as well as the history of the chair in Egypt and Greece. Since the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an unscathed series of sketches and paintings was kept, displaying the interior and exteriors of Chinese homes and the kinds of furniture. Another preservation from the 16th century are a trove of chairs of wood or lacquered wood, that display an intriguing likeness to images of previous chairs.
Like in Egypt, there were two iconic chair forms in China: a chair of four legs and a folding stool. That four-legged chair is constructed both with or without arms however never missing the square seat and straight stiles (upright side supports) to support the back. In one form, it has been seen, the stiles could be marginally curved on top of the arms for the purpose of conform correctly to the form of the S-shaped back splat (the central upright of the back). Together, the three parts are mortised into the yoke-like top rail. Though the idea of this back splat then had a foundation for English chairs of the Queen Anne period, wooden sections that merely to a limited capability support corner joints (and furthermore are loose to top that off) are an element exclusive to Chinese chairs. The four legs are set through the seat frame, which closes about the rounded staves. All members are round in section or possesses rounded edges—acknowledging maybe to the bamboo tradition. The seat is not pleasant and occasionally had a plaited texture. These chairs needed the sitter to remain stiff and upright; for when too much pressure is forced on the back, the chair has a habit of collapsing. In patriarchal Chinese homes of this period armchairs likely were allowed only for senior family members, for they were given great respect.
The Chinese folding stool is believed to have been brought to China from the West. It does not differ that much from the Egyptian and Scandinavian folding stools, but it has a change in that the top rail is delicately joined to the two legs of the stool by use of a curved member, which is generally seen with metal mounts. From a Western perspective the overall effect of both these furniture designs is stylized. The constructive and aesthetic elements are combined in a manner that is all at once naïve and refined. The pieced-together appearance is an upshot of the manner that the individual members do not appear to have been affixed by either glue or screws, but are mortised onto one another and locked into place in the style of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain during the 17th century also left its mark on the chair. Works of art show a style of chair with a relatively unrefined wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, consisting of two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing in the layers, stitched to show up a pattern of little pads. The front board and a related board from the back could be folded after loosening some little iron hooks. In this way the chair was a portable piece of furniture for traveling which, at the same time, had the dignity of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered type of chair can be seen in engravings of the interiors of wealthy Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, as well as in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. While this style of chair can also be seen in countries where Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won critical acclaim, it is not believed that the design actually was instigated in The Netherlands. Typically, the legs of the chair will be smooth, round in section, and of thin dimensions; they are occasionally baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is obviously a bourgeois piece of furniture and was produced in impressive amounts, as surmisable from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which an entire row of such chairs lined up by a wall. The style asserts itself with its shapely proportions and fine upholstery in gilt leather or fabric bordered with fringes.
France and England: 17th and 18th centuries
The French Rococo chair in its most mature of forms—that is, as created in Paris around 1750—spread through most of Europe and was imitated or copied during the mid-20th century. The model owes the popularity to a combination of relaxation and charm. The seat suits to the human body and allows a relaxed seated position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Normally the seat and back are upholstered, and there are small upholstered pads covering the armrests. Smooth transitions made between seat frame, legs, and back conceal all the joints, which are constructed solidly on craftsmanlike practices even with the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations thereof employ wood of relatively thick dimensions; but every member is deeply molded, all extra wood has been sanded away, and more upmarket chairs would be further embellished with highly delicate and decorative engravings. The wood could be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry is often used for any upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; cane is in some cases used in place of upholstery.
English chairs in the 18th century were more variable in form than the French. The French taste for stylistic uniformity, which spread from the aristocratic circles in Paris and Versailles through most of France and was popular in large 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 well-known and was widely distributed throughout the world.
Late 18th to 20th century
Within 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 versions 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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