Out of all furniture needs, the chair may be the imperative one. While many other pieces (save the bed) are meant to support objects, the chair supports your human form. The term chair was used here in the common sense, from stool to throne to derivative pieces such as the bench and sofa, which can be seen as extended or connected chairs, and whose character (i.e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining) is not overtly distinguished.
The social history of the chair is as curious as its history as art and craft. The chair is not just a physical support and aesthetic piece of art; it historically was an indicator of social hierarchy. In the old royal courts there were significant distinctions between having a chair with arms, on a chair with a back but no arms, and having to sit on a stool. Since the last century, the director’s and/or manager’s chair has been regarded as an identifier of superior status, and even in democratic government debate the speaker sits on a high-set level.
As a furniture construction, the chair ranges from a variety of various models. There are chairs created to suit man’s age and physical condition (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to connotate his rank in society (the executive chair, the throne). In past days there were chairs used for birthing (birth chairs); in the 20th century, there have been chairs used for ending life (the electric chair). We have chairs with one, two, three, and 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.
Modern day living has demanded unique chairs for use in automobiles and aircraft. All these chair types has been adapted to match to different human needs. Because of its close association with man, the chair lives to its full significance only when used. Whereas it does not make a difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a bureau whether there might be things inside or not, a chair is understood and judged best by a person using it, because chair and sitter require each other. Thus the individual elements of a chair were given labels as the elements of a human shape: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the first work of your chair is to support the human body, its value is tested generally on how suitably it does measure up to this practical purpose. Within the construction of a chair, the designer is restricted with the static regulation and principal measurements. In these limits, however, the chair builder has large freedom.
The history of the chair lasted a period of several thousand years. There existed societies that created iconic chair shapes, as expressions of the foremost object in the industries of handling and creativity. Among these such peoples, special 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 reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI.
Egypt
Two ancient Egyptian chair forms, both the structures of careful design, were a finding from tomb findings. First of them is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The classical Egyptian chair had four legs formed similar to those of a chosen animal, a curved seat, leading to a sloping back supported with vertical stretchers. From this a stable triangular form was crafted. There was to our understanding no particular difference between the creation of Egyptian thrones and chairs for ordinary non-royals. The simple variation existed in the type of ornamentation, in the evidence of costly inlays. The Egyptian folding stool probably was created to be an easily carried seat for army. As a camp stool the chair persevered during much later periods of time. But the stool then also was made as the role of a ceremonial seat, its mechanical role as a folding stool simply forgotten. This can now be seen, 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 form of folding stools but can’t be folded because the seats were created out of wood. The easy construction of the folding stool, composed of two frames that rotate on metal bolts and bear a seat of leather or fabric secured between them, is seen again at some time later from the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The best recognised of this form is the folding stool, made of ashwood, which can now be seen at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The unique Greek chair, the klismos, is seen not from any ancient object still around but as in a wealth of pictorial evidence. The significant kind is the klismos displayed on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial area near Athens (c. 410 BC). This is a chair with a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of them can be shown. These creative legs were considered to have been crafted from bent wood and were as such had extreme pressure from the weight of the sitter. The joints attaching the legs to the frame of the seat would have been therefore very strong and were overtly pointed out.
The Romans embued the Greek style; existing statues of seated Romans show evidence of a more heavyset and are a kind of more crudely designed klismos. Both designs, the light and heavy, were popularised during the Classicist time. The klismos influence can be seen in French Empire styles, in English Regency, and in particular forms of notable iconicism of Denmark and Sweden circa 1800.
China
The ancestry of the chair in China isn’t able to be charted as well as in Egypt and Greece. From the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an unbroken series of sketches and artworks had been preserved, displaying the interior and outer parts of Chinese houses and the furniture. Another preservation since the 16th century are a number of chairs of wood or lacquered wood, that display an amazing familiarity to images of ancient chairs.
Just as in Egypt, two chair designs persisted in China: a chair of four legs and a folding stool. The four-legged chair was designed both with or without arms however always with a square seat and straight stiles (vertical side supports) to hold up the back. In one kind, though, the stiles had been lightly curved above the arms so as to conform to the form of the S-shaped back splat (the basic upright of the back). Together, all three areas were mortised in the yoke-like top rail. Although the innovation of a back splat then had an inspiration for English chairs in the Queen Anne period, wooden pieces that would only to a restricted limit support corner joints (as well as being loose as a result) represent an element exclusive to Chinese chairs. The four legs pass through the seat frame, which stops over the rounded staves. Each member is round in section or possesses rounded edges—a left over perchance to the bamboo tradition. The seat is not pleasant and had on occasion a plaited form. These chairs required of the sitter to stay stiff and upright; when too much pressure is exerted on the back, the chair has a tendency to fall. In patriarchal Chinese houses of this period armchairs most likely were allowed only for elderly individuals in the family, for they were given great esteem.
The Chinese folding stool is presumed to have taken to China from the West. It does not differ that much from the Egyptian and Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a change in that the top rail is elegantly affixed to the two legs of the stool by using a curved member, which is often designed with metal mounts. From a Western understanding the resultant effect of these two furniture items is stylized. The construction and decorative elements are combined in a manner that is at the same time naïve and refined. The piecemeal appearance is an outcome of the manner that the individual items do not appear to have been affixed by means of either glue or screws, but have been mortised into one another and held in place in the manner of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain in the 17th century also put its signature on the chair. Paintings display a design of chair with a relatively unrefined 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 similar board at the back could be folded after unscrewing some little iron hooks. In this way the chair was a portable piece of furniture when traveling which, in the same period, had 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 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 can also be seen in countries where Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won favour, it is not believed that the form actually began in The Netherlands. Typically, the legs of the chair are smooth, round in section, and of thin measurements; they are sometimes baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is obviously a bourgeois piece of furniture and was made in vast quantities, as indicated from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which there is an entire row of such chairs lined up by a wall. The form asserts itself with its harmonious 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 of forms—that is, as developed in Paris around 1750—conquered most of Europe and was imitated or copied in the mid-20th century. The chair owes this popularity to a combination of comfort and delicacy. The seat adheres to the human body and permits 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 on the armrests. Smooth transitions are achieved between seat frame, legs, and back conceal all the joints, which are stable, constructed on craftsmanlike practices even with the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of them are constructed from wood of relatively thick density; but each member is deeply molded, all superfluous wood has been cut away, and finer designs may be further embellished with special delicate and decorative woodwork. The wood might be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry is often used for the upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; crosshatched cane is occasionally used rather than upholstery.
English chairs of the 18th century were more variable in style than the French. The French manner for stylistic uniformity, which spread from the most distinguished circles in Paris and Versailles through most of France and became the favourite 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
During 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 styles 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, purport that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
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