Out of each of the furniture items, the chair may be paramount. While the majority of other objects (except the bed) are devised to support objects, the chair supports a human form. The term chair can be used here in the largest sense, from stool to throne to derivative types for example 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 clearly distinguished.
The social history of the chair is as interesting as its history as a creative craft. The chair is not only a physical support and/or aesthetic craft; it historically is semiotic of social hierarchy. From the old royal courts there were clear signifiers between having a chair with arms, sitting on a chair with a back but no arms, and having to use a stool. Since the recent century, the director’s and manager’s chair has been a symbol of superior standing, as well as in democratic government meeting the speaker sits on a higher floor.
In its furniture creation, the chair is utilised for a wealth of variations. There are chairs manufactured to suit man’s age and physical abilities (the high chair, the wheelchair) and for his standing in society (the executive chair, the throne). In past times there were chairs for births (birth chairs); in the 20th century, there have been chairs used for ending life (the electric chair). We design 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 and put away, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Contemporary lifestyle has demanded particular chairs for use in automobiles and aircraft. Each and every one of these chair types has adapted to match to evolving human desires. From its significant link with man, the chair comes to its full purpose only when in use. While it doesn’t make a difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a dresser drawers whether there might be anything inside or not, a chair is best seen and clearly evaluated with a person sitting in it, because chair and sitter require the other. Thus the individual elements of the chair were named according to the elements of the human body: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the basic function of the chair is to support a body, its value is judged basically by how fully it measures up to this practical function. In the build of the chair, the chair maker is restricted within certain static regulation and principal measurements. Under these boundaries, however, the chair maker has great freedom.
The history of the chair lasts over dates of several thousand years. There were cultures that made individual chair forms, expressions of the principal object in the industries of technique and art. Out of these civilisations, special mention 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 upshot of skilled make, are now a finding from findings made in tombs. 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 structured not unlike those of a designated animal, a curved seat, and a sloping back supported by vertical stretchers. From this a durable triangular construction was made. There was apparently no notable differentiation in the construction of Egyptian thrones and chairs for ordinary populace. The general variation was in the complex ornamentation, in the evidence of expensive inlays. The Egyptian folding stool in all probability was made to be an easily stored seat for soldiers. As a camp stool the chair existed until much later periods of time. But the stool then took on the use of a ceremonial seat, its technical role as a folding stool ignored or forgotten. This can from today be noted, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, crafted in ebony with ivory inlay ornamentation and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They were made in the construction of folding stools but can not be folded as the seats were created from wood. The simple construction of the folding stool, composed of two frames that turn on metal bolts and have a seat of leather or fabric fastened between them, reappears some time later as the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The best recognised of these is the folding stool, of ashwood, which can now be found at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The unique Greek chair, the klismos, is known not in any ancient object still extant but as in a wealth of pictorial items. The best recognised is the klismos drawn on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial place near Athens (c. 410 BC). It is a chair with a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of those legs are visible. These curving legs were possibly created with bent wood and were probably had to bear great pressure with the weight of the sitter. The joints attaching the legs to the frame of the seat would have been therefore super solid and were visibly signified.
The Romans adopted the Greek design; designs of models of seated Romans show evidence of a thicker and are a rather crudely built klismos. Both types, light and heavy, were brought back as part of the Classicist epoch. The klismos style is known in French Empire design, in English Regency, and in some kinds of marked iconicism in Denmark and Sweden circa 1800.
China
The history of the chair in China cannot be followed as far as that of Egypt and Greece. Since the time of the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an unscathed folio of images and works of art had been kept, with images of the insides and exteriors of Chinese households and the designs of furniture. Another preservation from the 16th century are a trove of chairs made of wood or lacquered wood, that possess an amazing familiarity to styles of past chairs.
Just the same as in Egypt, there were two iconic chair forms in China: a chair that had four legs and a folding stool. That four-legged chair was found both with or without arms though never missing its square seat and straight stiles (upright side supports) to support the back. In one design, however, the stiles had been lightly curved by the arms so as to sit correctly with the angle of the S-shaped back splat (the central upright of a chairback). Each of the three parts are mortised on the yoke-like top rail. Despite that the innovation of the back splat then had a foundation for English chairs from the Queen Anne period, wooden pieces that merely to a restricted extent support corner joints (and then were loose to top that off) are a design exclusive to Chinese chairs. The four legs pass through the seat frame, which finishes about the rounded staves. Members are round in section or have rounded edges—a left over maybe to the bamboo tradition. The seat is uncomfortable and had on occasion a plaited texture. These chairs required the sitter to hold themselves stiff and upright; for when too much weight is pushed on the back, the chair has a habit of toppling over. In patriarchal Chinese houses of this era armchairs most likely were reserved for older family members, for they were given great respect.
The Chinese folding stool is understood to have come to China from the West. It does not differ that much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a difference in that the top rail is prettily affixed to the two legs of the stool by using a curved member, which is more often than not possessing metal mounts. From a Western understanding the overall effect of both these furniture items is stylized. The construction and decoration elements are combined in a way that is all at once naïve and refined. The piecemeal appearance is a result of the way that the individual items do not appear to have been fixed together with either glue or screws, but were mortised with one another and locked into place in the manner of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain during the 17th century also left its name on the chair. Artworks show a kind of chair with a relatively brusque wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, having only two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing in between the layers, stitched to show up a pattern of tiny pads. The front board and a corresponding board in the back could be folded after loosening some tiny iron hooks. Therefore the chair was a portable piece of furniture while traveling which, in the same time, possessed the status of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered type of chair can be found in engravings of the interiors of wealthy Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, and in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. Although this style of chair might also be found in countries where Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won critical acclaim, it is not determined that the form actually began in The Netherlands. Normally, the legs of the chair will be smooth, round in section, and of slender shape; they are occasionally baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is obviously a bourgeois piece of furniture and was produced in large numbers, as indicated from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which an entire row of these chairs lined up by a wall. The form asserts itself by virtue of its shapely proportions and fine upholstery in gilt leather or fabric edged with fringes.
France and England: 17th and 18th centuries
The French Rococo chair in its most mature form—that is, as brought out in Paris around 1750—spread over most of Europe and was imitated or copied into the mid-20th century. The chair owes such popularity to a combination of relaxation and charm. The seat conforms to the human body and permits a relaxed sitting position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Typically the seat and back are upholstered, and there are tiny upholstered pads over the armrests. Smooth transitions are made between seat frame, legs, and back conceal all the joints, which are constructed on craftsmanlike principles despite the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of them are constructed from wood of quite thick density; but all members are deeply molded, all superfluous wood has been taken away, and more expensive items might be further embellished with highly delicate and decorative carving. The wood could be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry is usually used for all of the upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; crosshatched cane is sometimes used as an alternative to upholstery.
English chairs of the 18th century were more open in design than the French. The French taste for stylistic uniformity, which came from the highest circles in Paris and Versailles throughout most of France and won favour 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 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 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, indicate that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
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