Out of all furniture needs, the chair may be primary. While the majority of other items (apart from the bed) are devised to support objects, the chair supports your human form. The term chair is meant to be looked upon here in the most common sense, from stool to throne to further kinds such as a bench or 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 overtly distinuishable.
The social history of the chair is as intriguing as its history as a creative art. The chair is not just a physical support and/or an aesthetic object; it historically was a signifier of social placement. At the old royal courts there were important connotations between possessing a chair with arms, or a chair with a back but without arms, or worse having to cope with a stool. During the past century, the director’s and/or manager’s chair has been regarded as a symbol of superior rank, and even in democratic government debate the speaker sits on an elevated floor.
In a furniture construction, the chair ranges from a variety of various purposes. There are chairs created to suit man’s age and physical condition (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to connotate his position in society (the executive chair, the throne). From the past there were chairs for birthing (birth chairs); from the 20th century, there have been chairs 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. There are chairs that can be folded and put away, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Our lifestyle has derived new chairs in automobiles and aircraft. Each and every one of these chair forms has been adapted to suit to evolving human needs. For its significant importance with man, the chair appears to its full importance only when being utilised. Whereas it is irrelevant to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a dresser drawers if there might be things inside or not, a chair is understood best and judged with a person sitting on it, for chair and sitter need the other. Thus the several elements of the chair have been named likened to the names of our human body: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the elementary work of a chair is to support the human body, its worth is tested basically by how completely it measures up to this practical function. In the manufacture of a chair, the chair maker is bound with the static rules and principal measurements. Through these limitations, however, the chair builder has great freedom.
The history of the chair extends over an epoch of several thousand years. There is evidence of cultures that had made individual chair shapes, as seen of the premier object in the arenas of handling and art. From these societies, 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 structures of expert craft, were seen from tomb findings. The first of the two is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The iconic Egyptian chair has 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 a stable triangular form was made. There was in our understanding no noteworthy difference in the creation of Egyptian thrones and chairs for ordinary peasantry. The main change exists in the brand of ornamentation, in the particulars of expensive inlays. The Egyptian folding stool in all probability was created to be an easily stored seat for army. As a camp stool this stool persisted during much later points in time. But the stool then existed in the use of a ceremonial seat, its original function as a folding stool fast forgotten. This can today be observed, 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 are not able to be folded because the seats were created with wood. The easy construction of the folding stool, consisting of two frames that rotate on metal bolts and have a seat of leather or fabric fastened between them, then appeared but some time later from the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most well known of those is the folding stool, crafted from ashwood, now seen at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The iconic Greek chair, the klismos, is known not from any ancient fossil still in form but as seen from a wealth of pictorial material. The best known is the klismos seen on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial ground in outer Athens (c. 410 BC). This is a chair that had a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of which are visible. These curved legs were thought to be executed in bent wood and were therefore had a large amount of pressure under the weight of the sitter. The joints fastening the legs to the frame of the seat would have been therefore very stable and were plainly denoted.
The Romans embued the Greek chair; designs of models of seated Romans offer evidence of a more heavyset and apparently kind of more crudely crafted klismos. Both kinds, the light or heavy, were revived in the Classicist period. The klismos style can be evidenced in French Empire furniture, in English Regency, and in special kinds of considerable iconicism within Denmark and Sweden from 1800.
China
The past of the chair in China cannot be charted as far as the progression of the chairs in Egypt and Greece. Since the time of the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an unbroken collection of images and artworks was protected, displaying the interior and exteriors of Chinese homes and the kinds of furniture. Preserved also of the 16th century are a trove of chairs crafted of wood or lacquered wood, that hold an intriguing likeness to representations of past chairs.
As was the case in Egypt, there existed two major chair designs in China: a chair that had four legs and a folding stool. The four-legged chair is found both with or without arms although always with a square seat and straight stiles (straight side supports) to give support to the back. In one image, however, the stiles were marginally curved on top of the arms so as to sit correctly with the structure of the S-shaped back splat (the basic upright of its chairback). Together, all three limbs were mortised in the yoke-like top rail. Despite that the style of the back splat had an introduction for English chairs within the Queen Anne period, wooden members that could only to a particular capability embolden corner joints (as well as being loose to top that off) indicate a signature particular 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 has rounded edges—a left over perchance to the bamboo tradition. The seat is not comfortable and occasionally had a plaited bottom. These chairs demanded of the sitter to hold themselves stiff and upright; for when too much weight is placed on the back, the chair has a tendency to fall over. In patriarchal Chinese homes of this epoch armchairs probably were reserved for the senior family members, for they were given great respect.
The Chinese folding stool is thought to have been brought to China from the West. It is akin so very much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a dissimilarity in that the top rail is delicately held to the two legs of the stool by use of a curved member, which is more often than not provided with metal mounts. From a Western point of view the resulting effect of both furniture forms is stylized. The construction and aesthetic issues are combined in a manner that is at the same time naïve and refined. The piecemeal appearance is a result of the way that the individual parts do not look to have been put together with either glue or screws, but had been mortised on one another and fixed in its place in the manner of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain during the 17th century also left its signature on the chair. Artworks show a type of chair with a relatively unrefined wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, possessing two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing in the layers, stitched to bring out a pattern of tiny pads. The front board and a corresponding board at the back could be folded after unscrewing some tiny iron hooks. In this way the chair was an easily portable piece of furniture in traveling which, at the same period, held the status of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered kind of chair is found in engravings of interiors of affluent 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 might also be made in countries in which Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won critical acclaim, it is not decided that the style actually began in The Netherlands. Usually, the legs of the chair will be smooth, round in section, and of slim shape; they are occasionally baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is unquestionably a bourgeois piece of furniture and was made in considerable quantities, as can be surmised from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which there is a row of such chairs lined up by a wall. The design asserts itself by virtue of its shapely proportions and delicate upholstery in gilt leather or fabric edged with fringes.
France and England: 17th and 18th centuries
The French Rococo chair in its most mature style—that was, to say, as created in Paris around 1750—disseminated over most of Europe and was imitated or copied during the mid-20th century. The style owes the popularity to a combination of comfort and elegance. The seat conforms 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 made between seat frame, legs, and back cover all the joints, which are stable, constructed on craftsmanlike methodology even with the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of them employ wood of relatively thick density; but every member is deeply molded, all superfluous wood has been cut away, and more expensive designs would be further embellished with very delicate and decorative engraving. The wood can be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry is often used for any upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; canework is sometimes used instead of upholstery.
English chairs from the 18th century were more open in design than the French. The French taste for stylistic uniformity, which disseminated from the premier circles in Paris and Versailles within 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 commonly 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 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, hint that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
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