Of all furniture needs, the chair could be of the most importance. While most other pieces (save the bed) are created to support objects, the chair supports a human form. The term chair can be looked upon here in the general sense, from stool to throne to complex types like a bench and sofa, which might be considered as extended or connected chairs, and whose character (i.e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining) is not obviously distinguished.
The social history of the chair is as curious as its history as a creative craft. The chair is not simply a physical support and/or an aesthetic artwork; it historically was a symbol of social standing. At the past royal courts there were important differences between being led to a chair with arms, on a chair with a back but no arms, and having to squat on a stool. During the 20th century, a director’s and manager’s chair has been a signifier of superior position, and in democratic governments the speaker sits on a higher level.
As its furniture creation, the chair encompasses a number of variations. There are chairs manufactured to match man’s age and physical condition (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to show his position in society (the executive chair, the throne). Since historical days there were chairs used for birth (birth chairs); in the 20th century, there have been chairs for ending life (the electric chair). There are chairs with one, two, three, or four legs, chairs with or without arms, and chairs with or without backs. We can have chairs that can be folded up, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Contemporary lifestyle has derived unique chairs for use in automobiles and aircraft. Every one of these chair kinds have changed to conform to growing human desires. Because of its particular link with man, the chair exists to its full importance only when being used. While it is irrelevant to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a set of drawers whether there are things inside or not, a chair is understood best and fairly tested by a person using it, for chair and sitter suit one another. Thus the several parts of a chair have been labeled like the areas of a human form: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the simple role of a chair is to support the body, its value is judged generally on how completely it does fulfill this practical job. Within the manufacture of the chair, the builder is bound within certain static regulation and principal measurements. Through these limitations, however, the chair designer has large freedom.
The history of the chair lasts over an era of several thousand years. There are peoples that created iconic chair forms, expressive of the topmost work in the spheres of skill and aesthetics. Out of such civilisations, special mention must 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 lives of Louis XV and Louis XVI.
Egypt
Two ancient Egyptian chair forms, both the upshot of masterful craft, are today a finding from tomb discoveries. The first of these two is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The original Egyptian chair has four legs shaped akin to those of a designated animal, a curved seat, leading to a sloping back supported above vertical stretchers. In this design a solid triangular design was made. There seemed to be no particular change between the structure of Egyptian thrones and chairs for common people. The real variation existed in the level of ornamentation, in the evidence of more valuable inlays. The Egyptian folding stool most likely was made for an easily stored seat for army soldiers. As a camp stool that kind persevered for much later periods. But the stool then also took on the purpose of a ceremonial seat, its mechanical task as a folding stool ignored or forgotten. This can from today be seen, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, created in ebony with ivory inlay decoration and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They were in the form of folding stools but are not able to be folded as the seats are made from wood. The simple structure of the folding stool, being of two frames that turn on metal bolts and have a seat of leather or fabric fastened between them, appeared again but some time later as the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most recognisable of those is the folding stool, made from ashwood, which can now be found at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The unique Greek chair, the klismos, is known not with any ancient specimen still extant but as seen from a trove of pictorial evidence. The most recognisable is the klismos posited on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial location by Athens (c. 410 BC). This klismos is a chair that had a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of those would be seen. These creative legs were most likely to have been created with bent wood and were in that case needed to bear extreme pressure from the weight of the sitter. The joints attaching the legs to the frame of the seat would have been therefore very durable and were clearly drawn.
The Romans borrowed from the Greek design; designs of statues of seated Romans display evidence of a denser and which appear to be a kind of less intricately built klismos. Both designs, light or heavy, were brought back in the Classicist epoch. The klismos influence is seen in French Empire styles, in English Regency, and in some particular forms of considerable originality within Denmark and Sweden circa 1800.
China
The past of the chair in China isn’t able to be traced as long as the history of the chair in Egypt and Greece. Since the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) a full collection of sketches and paintings has been kept, detailing the inside and exterior of Chinese homes and the designs of furniture. Kept also since the 16th century are a trove of chairs crafted from wood or lacquered wood, that bear an amazing similarity to images of past chairs.
Just like in Egypt, there were two particular chair forms in China: a chair of four legs and a folding stool. That four-legged chair is designed both with or without arms although never without a square seat and straight stiles (vertical side supports) to support the back. In one type, it must be said, the stiles could be lightly curved over the arms so as to conform to the shape of the S-shaped back splat (the centre upright of the back). Together, the three parts were mortised into the yoke-like top rail. While the idea of the Chinese back splat had an influence on English chairs in the Queen Anne period, wooden pieces that only to a particular extent reinforce corner joints (and furthermore are loose as a result) indicate an element signatory to Chinese chairs. The four legs sit through the seat frame, which stops over the rounded staves. All members are round in section or have rounded edges—a left over maybe to the bamboo tradition. The seat is uncomfortable and might have had a plaited form. These chairs required the sitter to be stiff and upright; when too much pressure is pushed on the back, the chair has a way of collapsing. In patriarchal Chinese homes of this era armchairs most likely were allowed only for older family members, for they were given great respect.
The Chinese folding stool is believed to have been brought to China from the West. It is not dissimilar very much from the Egyptian and Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a variation in that the top rail is elegantly affixed to the two legs of the stool by use of a curved member, which is usually designed with metal mounts. From a Western point of view the ultimate effect of these furniture designs is stylized. The manufacture and decoration parts are combined in a style that is both naïve and refined. The pieced-together appearance is an outcome of the manner that the individual parts do not seem to have been fixed together by either glue or screws, but were mortised with one another and fixed in its place in the style of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain during the 17th century also left its name on the chair. Paintings show a design of chair with a relatively unrefined wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, having only two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing in between, stitched to show up a pattern of little pads. The front board and a corresponding board from the back could be folded after loosening some little iron hooks. Therefore the chair was a readily portable piece of furniture when traveling which, at the same period, gave the status of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered design of chair is evidenced in engravings of the interior of wealthy Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, as well as in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. Though this style of chair is also made in countries in which Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won acclaim, it is not decided that the innovation actually was instigated in The Netherlands. Normally, the legs of the chair are smooth, round in section, and of thin shape; they are occasionally baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is unquestionably a bourgeois piece of furniture and was manufactured in large quantities, as can be seen from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which an entire row of these chairs lined up by a wall. The style asserts itself by its shapely proportions and expensive 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 to say, as developed in Paris around 1750—disseminated over most of Europe and has been imitated or copied into the mid-20th century. The style owes this popularity to a combination of leisure and charm. The seat adheres to the human body and grants a relaxed sitting position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Typically the seat and back are upholstered, and there are small upholstered pads over the armrests. Smooth transitions achieved between seat frame, legs, and back conceal all the joints, which are constructed on craftsmanlike methods despite the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of them use wood of relatively thick density; but every member is deeply molded, all superfluous wood has been cut away, and more expensive designs may be further embellished with highly delicate and decorative carving. The wood might be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry should be used for the upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; canework is occasionally used as an alternative to upholstery.
English chairs in the 18th century were more differentiated in form than the French. The French manner for stylistic uniformity, which disseminated from the most distinguished circles in Paris and Versailles throughout 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 popular 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 brands 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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