From each of the furniture forms, the chair may be the imperative one. While most other pieces (save for the bed) are meant to support objects, the chair supports the human form. The term chair can be regarded here in the general sense, from stool to throne to further pieces like the 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 overtly definitive.
The social history of the chair is as exciting as its history as an art and craft. The chair is not just a physical support or an aesthetic piece; it historically is a symbol of social place. At the historical royal courts there were important connotations between possessing a chair with arms, sitting on a chair with a back but without arms, and having to sit on a stool. Since the past century, a director’s and/or manager’s chair has risen a signifier of superior standing, like in democratic government debate the speaker sits on a higher platform.
As its furniture purpose, the chair ranges from a range of different purposes. There are chairs manufactured to fit man’s age and physical form (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to denote his status in society (the executive chair, the throne). During the olden days there were chairs used for birth (birth chairs); in the 20th century, there have been chairs to die in (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 derived special chairs for use in automobiles and aircraft. Each of these chair kinds have been perfected to conform to changing human desires. For its unique link with man, the chair exists to its full meaning only when used. Though 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 understood and fairly tested with a person sitting in it, because chair and sitter complement each other. Thus the different parts of the chair have been named according to the parts of a human form: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the basic role of a chair is to support the body, its worth is judged primarily on how completely it fulfills this practical purpose. In the creation of the chair, the maker is restricted under certain static regulations and principal measurements. Under these regulations, however, the chair creator has awesome freedom.
The history of the chair extended over an era of several thousand years. There were cultures that had made iconic chair forms, as expressive of the principal work in the industries of skill and art. Among these cultures, a mention 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 lifetimes of Louis XV and Louis XVI.
Egypt
Two ancient Egyptian chair forms, both the construct of careful scheme, are today found from tomb findings. First of them is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The original Egyptian chair had four legs crafted not unlike those of a particular animal, a curved seat, and with a sloping back supported over vertical stretchers. In this design a durable triangular design was obtained. There appears to be no marked change from the creation of Egyptian thrones and chairs for regular citizens. The main difference lies in the brand of ornamentation, in the choice of pricey inlays. The Egyptian folding stool most likely was manufactured as an easily carried seat for army soldiers. As a camp stool that type persevered until much later days. But the stool then also was created for the role of a ceremonial seat, its technical function as a folding stool neglected or forgotten. This can from evidence be noted, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, formed in ebony with ivory inlay ornamentation and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They were constructed in the form of folding stools but can’t be folded as the seats were formed with wood. The plain build of the folding stool, composed of two frames that cycle on metal bolts and have a seat of leather or fabric secured between them, is seen again but somewhat later during the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The best known of this type is the folding stool, of ashwood, now seen at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The unique Greek chair, the klismos, is found not in any ancient item still around but as seen from a variety of pictorial evidence. The best known is the klismos drawn on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial place by Athens (c. 410 BC). The klismos is a chair with a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, only two of these legs are displayed. These unique legs were presumed to have been executed of bent wood and were probably put under huge pressure under the weight of the sitter. The joints joining the legs to the frame of the seat were therefore extremely strong and were visibly pointed out.
The Romans borrowed from the Greek designs; existing models of seated Romans are designs of a heavier and in appearance rather crudely constructed klismos. Both features, the light or the heavy, were brought back as part of the Classicist period. The klismos influence can be evidenced in French Empire design, in English Regency, and in special brands of marked originality of Denmark and Sweden from 1800.
China
The progression of the chair in China isn’t able to be charted as long as the progression of the chair in Egypt and Greece. From the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) a full collection of images and works of art was protected, showing the interiors and exteriors of Chinese buildings and their furniture. Preserved also from the 16th century are a number of chairs constructed from wood or lacquered wood, that bear an intriguing resemblance to designs of previous chairs.
Like in Egypt, there existed two standard chair designs in China: a chair of four legs and a folding stool. The four-legged chair was constructed both with and without arms although never without a square seat and straight stiles (standing side supports) to support the back. In one kind, however, the stiles were slightly curved on top of the arms in order to conform correctly to the angle of the S-shaped back splat (the centre upright of a back). Together, all three limbs are mortised into the yoke-like top rail. While the idea of this back splat then had an introduction for English chairs from the Queen Anne period, wooden sections that only to a restricted extent stabilise corner joints (and furthermore were loose to top it off) represent a signature signatory to Chinese chairs. The four legs pass through the seat frame, which closes upon the rounded staves. Every member is round in section or is given rounded edges—an acknowledgement as may be to the bamboo tradition. The seat is not pleasant and might have had a plaited bottom. These chairs needed the sitter to stay stiff and upright; for when too much pressure is exerted on the back, the chair has a tendency to topple over. In patriarchal Chinese homes of this period armchairs most likely were only for senior individuals, for they were greatly esteemed.
The Chinese folding stool is thought to have been brought to China from the West. It does not differ much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a difference in that the top rail is prettily fixed to the two legs of the stool by using a curved member, which is generally designed with metal mounts. From a Western point of view the overall effect of these furniture forms is stylized. The construction and decorative parts are combined in a manner that is simultaneously naïve and refined. The pieced-together appearance is a result of the manner that the individual parts do not seem to have been constructed by means of either glue or screws, but were mortised onto one another and locked into 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. Artworks display 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 bring up a pattern of tiny pads. The front board and a corresponding board at the back could be folded after loosening some little iron hooks. In this way the chair was an easily portable piece of furniture for traveling which, during 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 rich Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, and also in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. Though this kind of chair is also found in countries in which Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won acclaim, it is not believed that the style actually was born in The Netherlands. Normally, the legs of the chair will be smooth, round in section, and of slender dimensions; they are occasionally baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is obviously a bourgeois piece of furniture and was manufactured in considerable quantities, as can be seen from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which there is an entire row of these chairs lined up against a wall. The design 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 developed in Paris around 1750—spread over most of Europe and was imitated or copied in the mid-20th century. The chair owes this popularity to a combination of relaxation and elegance. The seat suits to the human body and permits a relaxed seated position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Generally the seat and back are upholstered, and there are small upholstered pads covering the armrests. Smooth transitions are made between seat frame, legs, and back conceal all the joints, which are solidly constructed on craftsmanlike methods even with the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of those use wood of relatively thick density; but all the members are deeply molded, all extraneous wood has been cut away, and finer examples would be further embellished with intricately delicate and decorative woodwork. The wood could be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry is generally used for all upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; canework is in some cases used as an alternative to upholstery.
English chairs of the 18th century were more differentiated in form than the French. The French touch for stylistic uniformity, which came from the most distinguished circles in Paris and Versailles within most of France and found favour 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 popular 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, indicate that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
For a great deal on office storage in Melbourne contact Fast Office Furniture today and check our specials.
Tangalooma Island Resort is a paradise found in Tangalooma, Queensland in Australia. It was originally a whaling station and was made into an island resort because of its rare flora and fauna and its wonderful views. Couples or families hunting down a choice holiday destination would certainly 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.