From all the furniture pieces, the chair could be primary. While most other items (save the bed) are designed to support objects, the chair supports our human form. The term chair can be regarded here in the most common sense, from stool to throne to developed forms such as the bench and sofa, which should be seen 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 a creative art. The chair is not just a physical support or aesthetic artwork; it is historically semiotic of social ranking. At the old royal courts there were clear distinctions between having 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 and/or manager’s chair has developed a signifier of superior rank, and in democratic governments the speaker sits on a raised level.
In its furniture construction, the chair can be used for a number of different makes. There are chairs structured to match man’s age and physical form (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to indicate his rank in society (the executive chair, the throne). In historical times there were chairs to be born in (birth chairs); during the 20th century, there have been chairs used for ending life (the electric chair). There are chairs with one, two, three, and 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.
Contemporary lifestyle has designated special chairs in automobiles and aircraft. Every one of these chair shapes have evolved to match to differing human requirements. For its close link with man, the chair comes to its full significance only when being used. Though it does not make any difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a chest of drawers if there is anything inside or not, a chair is understood and fairly regarded with a person sitting in it, because chair and sitter complement one another. Thus the various limbs of a chair are labeled as the areas of the human body: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the elemental job of your chair is to support our body, its credit is valued principally by how completely it fulfills this practical function. Within the creation of a chair, the maker is limited with particular static law and principal measurements. Under these limitations, however, the chair maker has marvellous freedom.
The history of the chair extended over an era of several thousand years. There is evidence of civilizations that created individual chair shapes, as expressions of the principal endeavour in the arenas of technique and aesthetics. Among these such peoples, a 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 lifetimes of Louis XV and Louis XVI.
Egypt
Two ancient Egyptian chair forms, both the items of skilled scheme, are today found from findings made in tombs. The first one of the two is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The typical Egyptian chair would have had four legs crafted not unlike those of a designated animal, a curved seat, and leading to a sloping back supported from vertical stretchers. From this design a strong triangular structure was made. There was to all appearances no notable variation between the creation of Egyptian thrones and chairs for common people. The simple change lies in the intricacy of its ornamentation, in the choice of more valuable inlays. The Egyptian folding stool most probably was made to be an easily packed seat for soldiers. As a camp stool the kind stayed til much later points. But the stool then also was made for the character of a ceremonial seat, its mechanical role as a folding stool fast forgotten. This can today be found, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, crafted in ebony with ivory inlay decoration and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They were made in the shape of folding stools but are not able to be folded as the seats are worked from wood. The plain make of the folding stool, made of two frames that turn on metal bolts and support a seat of leather or fabric held between them, was then seen but some time later during the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most well known of this form is the folding stool, made out of ashwood, which is now found at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The typical Greek chair, the klismos, is known not with any ancient object still extant but as in a variety of pictorial material. The significant kind is the klismos drawn on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial area near Athens (c. 410 BC). It is a chair that had a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of which can be seen. These strange legs were probably created with bent wood and were thus subjected to a large amount of pressure under the weight of the sitter. The joints joining the legs to the frame of the seat were therefore very stable and were plainly drawn.
The Romans emulated the Greek style; evidence of models of seated Romans display evidence of a denser and in appearance kind of less delicately crafted klismos. Both designs, light and heavy, were popularised in the Classicist epoch. The klismos influence can be found in French Empire furniture, in English Regency, and in particular forms of notable uniqueness around Denmark and Sweden during 1800.
China
The progression of the chair in China cannot be tracked as well as chairs in Egypt and Greece. Since the time of the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an unbroken serial of sketches and paintings had been protected, with images of the insides and exteriors of Chinese houses and the furniture. Preserved also from the 16th century are a collection of chairs made of wood or lacquered wood, that show an interesting familiarity to styles of older chairs.
As was the case in Egypt, there were two standard chair forms in China: a chair having four legs and a folding stool. That chair can be seen both with or without arms but always with its square seat and straight stiles (straight side supports) to give support to the back. In one type, it must be said, the stiles had been lightly curved by the arms to conform to the shape of the S-shaped back splat (the centre upright of a chairback). Each of the three parts were mortised onto the yoke-like top rail. Though the innovation of the back splat later had a foundation for English chairs of the Queen Anne period, wooden items that could only to a limited ability reinforce corner joints (and are loose to top that off) indicate a feature solely to Chinese chairs. The four legs sit through the seat frame, which ends around the rounded staves. Each member is round in section or is given rounded edges—references perhaps to the bamboo tradition. The seat is not comfortable and may have a plaited seat. These chairs needed the sitter to be stiff and upright; for if too much pressure is placed on the back, the chair has a tendency to topple. In patriarchal Chinese houses of this era armchairs likely were reserved for elderly people, for they were held in great esteem.
The Chinese folding stool is believed to have been brought to China from the West. It is not dissimilar that much from the Egyptian and 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 usually possessing metal mounts. From a Western perspective the ultimate effect of both furniture styles is stylized. The manufacture and decoration elements are combined in a manner that is both naïve and refined. The piecemeal appearance is a result of the fact that the individual items do not look to have been fixed together with either glue or screws, but have been mortised onto one another and held in its place in the style of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain of the 17th century also left its name on the chair. Artworks project a style of chair with a relatively crude wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, having only two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing in the layers, stitched to bring up a pattern of tiny pads. The front board and a corresponding board at the back could be folded after unscrewing some small iron hooks. Thus the chair was a portable piece of furniture in traveling which, at the same period, possessed the dignity of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered design of chair is found 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. Though this type of chair may also be seen in countries in which Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won preference, it is not decided that the design actually began in The Netherlands. Typically, the legs of the chair were 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 produced in large amounts, as can be surmised from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which an entire row of such chairs lined up along a wall. The style asserts itself with 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 of forms—that was, to say, as progressed in Paris around 1750—disseminated through most of Europe and has been imitated or copied in the mid-20th century. The chair owes the popularity to a combination of leisure and delicacy. The seat conforms to the human body and grants 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 over the armrests. Smooth transitions are made between seat frame, legs, and back disguise all the joints, which are solidly constructed on craftsmanlike practices despite the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of those employ wood of relatively thick measurements; but all the members are deeply molded, all extraneous wood has been taken away, and more expensive designs would be further embellished with special delicate and decorative carvings. The wood could be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry might be used for any upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; cane is in some cases used rather than upholstery.
English chairs from the 18th century were more variable in form than the French. The French preference for stylistic uniformity, which disseminated from the premier circles in Paris and Versailles throughout 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 well-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 products 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.
For a great deal on office chairs in Melbourne contact Fast Office Furniture today and check our specials.
Tangalooma Island Resort is an earthly haven found in Tangalooma, Queensland in Australia. It was formerly a whaling station and was formed into an island holiday destination because of its rare flora and fauna and its glorious views. Couples or families trying to find a choice getaway destination will undoubtedly cherish a Tangalooma Island Resort holiday.
Hawaii is home to many beautiful vacation destinations and holiday reservations to these tropical islands can be made by Travel Online. This iconic tourist destination is well-known for its pristine beaches, moderate climate, world-standard shopping facilities, and unique Polynesian culture.