From all the furniture objects, the chair could be paramount. While most other items (save for the bed) are created to support objects, the chair supports our human form. The term chair is intended to be regarded here in the largest sense, from stool to throne to derivative kinds including a bench and sofa, which should be viewed as extended or connected chairs, and whose character (i.e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining) is not obviously labeled.
The social history of the chair is as stimulating as its history as a creative craft. The chair is not just a physical support and an aesthetic object; it historically is symbolic of social ranking. From the Medieval royal courts there were significant differences between being seated on a chair with arms, or a chair with a back but without arms, or having to make do with a stool. Since the recent century, the director’s and manager’s chair has been a symbol of superior position, like in democratic government meeting the speaker sits on a raised level.
In its furniture purpose, the chair ranges from a range of variations. There are chairs structured to fit man’s age and physical condition (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to denote his standing in society (the executive chair, the throne). In the olden days there were chairs used for birth (birth chairs); from the 20th century, there have been chairs used to die in (the electric chair). There are chairs with one, two, three, or four legs, chairs with or without arms, and chairs with or without backs. We can make chairs that can be folded up, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Our contemporary lifestyle has demanded special chairs for use in automobiles and aircraft. All of these chair shapes have adapted to fit to different human needs. Because of its significant connection with man, the chair exists to its full advantage only when in employ. Whereas it doesn’t make a difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a chest of drawers whether there might be items inside or not, a chair is really understood and tested with a person sitting on it, because chair and sitter complement the other. Thus the several areas of the chair have been given labels as the names of our human form: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the original purpose of your chair is to support our body, its credit is tested generally from how suitably it measures up to this practical function. In the build of the chair, the chair maker is bound within the static rules and principal measurements. In these restrictions, however, the chair creator has awesome freedom.
The history of the chair lasted over an epoch of several thousand years. There are civilizations that had distinctive chair types, as seen of the premier object in the industries of craft and creativity. From these such peoples, individual 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 ascendancy of Louis XV and Louis XVI.
Egypt
Two ancient Egyptian chair forms, both the construct of expert design, are now seen from tomb discoveries. First of them is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The iconic Egyptian chair would have four legs crafted similar to those of a chosen animal, a curved seat, and a sloping back supported above vertical stretchers. From this design a strong triangular structure was created. There was in our understanding no notable differentiation from the construction of Egyptian thrones and chairs for typical non-royals. The simple variation lied in the kind of ornamentation, in the choice of more costly inlays. The Egyptian folding stool in all likelihood was created as an easily packed seat for soldiers. As a camp stool this form stayed around until much later points. But the stool then also was created as the task of a ceremonial seat, its technical task as a folding stool being forgotten. This can from today’s evidence be observed, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, executed in ebony with ivory inlay ornamentation and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They are constructed in the form of folding stools but cannot be folded because the seats were made out of wood. The simple manufacture of the folding stool, consisting of two frames that turn on metal bolts and support a seat of leather or fabric secured between them, then came again some time later from the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most recognised of those is the folding stool, made out of ashwood, which can now be seen at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The significant Greek chair, the klismos, is recognised not with any ancient specimen still around but as in a variety of pictorial evidence. The best known is the klismos drawn on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial place outside Athens (c. 410 BC). This klismos is a chair that had a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of those are visible. These curving legs were most likely manufactured in bent wood and were probably needed to bear extreme pressure under the weight of the sitter. The joints joining the legs to the frame of the seat had to be therefore very stable and were clearly denoted.
The Romans emulated the Greek chair; some statues of seated Romans show evidence of a more heavyset and which appear to be a kind of crudely designed klismos. Both kinds, the light and the heavy, were brought back in the Classicist time. The klismos style is seen in French Empire styles, in English Regency, and in some forms of notable iconicism of Denmark and Sweden circa 1800.
China
The history of the chair in China isn’t able to be charted as well as the history of chairs in Egypt and Greece. Since the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an unbroken collection of drawings and artworks had been kept safe, with images of the interiors and exterior of Chinese houses and the furniture. Also kept since the 16th century are a trove of chairs constructed of wood or lacquered wood, that possess an interesting resemblance to images of past chairs.
As in Egypt, there were two particular chair forms in China: a chair of four legs and a folding stool. The four-legged chair can be constructed both with and without arms although always having a square seat and straight stiles (upright side supports) to hold up the back. In one type, it must be said, the stiles were slightly curved on top of the arms for the purpose of conform to the angle of the S-shaped back splat (the basic upright of its back). Each of the three limbs are mortised in the yoke-like top rail. Though the style of the Chinese back splat then had an inspiration for English chairs within the Queen Anne period, wooden pieces that merely to a limited capability stabilise corner joints (and were loose as well) are a design solely to Chinese chairs. The four legs pass through the seat frame, which closes upon the rounded staves. All members are round in section or has rounded edges—referable maybe to the bamboo tradition. The seat is uncomfortable and may have a plaited seat. These chairs demanded of the sitter to remain stiff and upright; when too much weight is placed on the back, the chair has a way of toppling over. In patriarchal Chinese homes of this period armchairs most likely were reserved for older members of the family, for they were held in great respect.
The Chinese folding stool is believed to have travelled to China from the West. It does not vary very much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a variation in that the top rail is prettily fixed to the two legs of the stool in a curved member, which is more often than not seen with metal mounts. From a Western understanding the resultant effect of both these furniture items is stylized. The manufacture and decoration parts are combined in a manner that is simultaneously naïve and refined. The patchwork appearance is a result of the manner that the individual items do not look to have been adjoined with either glue or screws, but have been mortised on one another and locked into its place in the style of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain during the 17th century also put its signature on the chair. Artworks show a style of chair with a relatively brusque wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, with two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing in between, stitched to bring up a pattern of little pads. The front board and a related board at the back could be folded after loosening some little iron hooks. Thus the chair was an easily portable piece of furniture in traveling which, during the same era, 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 type of chair may also be made in countries where Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won preference, it is not believed that the innovation actually was born in The Netherlands. Generally, the legs of the chair were smooth, round in section, and of slim dimensions; they are sometimes baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is obviously a bourgeois piece of furniture and was produced in vast amounts, as can be surmised from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which a whole row of those chairs lined up along a wall. The style asserts itself by virtue of its shapely proportions and delicate 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 styles—that is to say, as brought out in Paris around 1750—disseminated over most of Europe and has been imitated or copied into the mid-20th century. The model owes its popularity to a combination of leisure and charm. The seat adheres to the human body and grants 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 over the armrests. Smooth transitions made between seat frame, legs, and back conceal all the joints, which are constructed on craftsmanlike methodology in spite of the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of those employ wood of fairly thick dimensions; but every member is deeply molded, all extra wood has been taken away, and more upmarket designs may be further embellished with highly delicate and decorative engravings. The wood could be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry is usually used for the upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; cane is occasionally used rather than upholstery.
English chairs in the 18th century were more varied in style than the French. The French taste for stylistic uniformity, which came from the highest circles in Paris and Versailles within most of France and was popular in several 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 popularised 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, suggest that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
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