From each of the furniture forms, the chair could be the paramount one. While the majority of other pieces (save for the bed) are devised to support objects, the chair supports a human form. The term chair is meant to be said here in the widest sense, from stool to throne to developed types like the bench or sofa, which should be considered 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 curious as its history as a creative art. The chair is not just a physical support and an aesthetic item; it can also be a symbol of social hierarchy. At the old royal courts there were social signifiers between being seated on a chair with arms, sitting on a chair with a back but without arms, and having to cope with a stool. During the last century, the director’s and/or manager’s chair has been a signifier of superior rank, as well as in democratic governments the speaker sits on a higher platform.
As a furniture construction, the chair encompasses a wealth of various forms. There are chairs created to attend to man’s age and physical abilities (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to connotate his rank in society (the executive chair, the throne). In the past there were chairs for births (birth chairs); in the 20th century, there have been chairs used for ending life (the electric chair). We make chairs with one, two, three, and/or four legs, chairs with or without arms, and chairs with or without backs. We make chairs that can be folded, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Our contemporary lifestyle has developed particular chairs in automobiles and aircraft. Each and every one of these chair shapes have evolved to suit to evolving human uses. Because of its unique link with man, the chair lives to its full importance only when utilised. Although it is irrelevant to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a chest of drawers if there might be anything inside or not, a chair is seen best and clearly evaluated by a person sitting on it, for chair and sitter suit each other. Thus the different elements of the chair have been given names as the areas of a human parts: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the clear role of your chair is to support your body, its credit is valued principally from how suitably it measures up to this practical function. In the design of a chair, the chair maker is bound under particular static legislation and principal measurements. Under these limitations, however, the chair maker has marvellous freedom.
The history of the chair was a period of several thousand years. There existed civilizations that have created significant chair shapes, as expressive of the topmost object in the spheres of craft and art. From these societies, a 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 objects of masterful make, are now a finding from tombs. First of them is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The iconic Egyptian chair would have four legs formed akin to those of some animal, a curved seat, leading to a sloping back supported over vertical stretchers. From this design a stable triangular construction was crafted. There was from our view no particular change in the design of Egyptian thrones and chairs for regular populace. The main variation lies in the decorative ornamentation, in the choice of costly inlays. The Egyptian folding stool in all probability was developed for an easily stored seat for officers. As a camp stool the kind existed til much later periods of time. But the stool also was made for the role of a ceremonial seat, its original task as a folding stool being forgotten. This can now be seen, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, created in ebony with ivory inlay ornamentation and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They were constructed in the structure of folding stools but are not able to be folded as the seats are created out of wood. The simplistic structure of the folding stool, consisting of two frames that rotate on metal bolts and have a seat of leather or fabric fastened between them, is seen again but some time later from the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most well known of this kind is the folding stool, made from ashwood, now found at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The iconic Greek chair, the klismos, is found not from any ancient fossil still extant but from a variety of pictorial material. The iconic kind is the klismos depicted on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial place in outer Athens (c. 410 BC). This klismos is a chair that had a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of which would be displayed. These creative legs were likely to be executed out of bent wood and were in that case had to bear great pressure with the weight of the sitter. The joints joining the legs to the frame of the seat are therefore extremely durable and were overtly indicated.
The Romans borrowed from the Greek designs; evidence of casts of seated Romans display examples of a more heavyset and which appear to be a slightly less delicately designed klismos. Both types, light and heavy, were revived during the Classicist period. The klismos influence is known in French Empire styles, in English Regency, and in some special brands of considerable uniqueness around Denmark and Sweden from 1800.
China
The progression of the chair in China can not be charted as far as the history of the chair in Egypt and Greece. Since the time of the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) a full collection of drawings and paintings has been protected, showing the inside and exterior of Chinese buildings and the kinds of furniture. Preserved also since the 16th century are some chairs made from wood or lacquered wood, that hold an amazing likeness to styles of ancient chairs.
Just as in Egypt, two particular chair forms existed in China: a chair with four legs and a folding stool. This four-legged chair is designed both with and without arms however never without its square seat and straight stiles (standing side supports) to support the back. In one form, it must be said, the stiles could be lightly curved above the arms to conform to the angle of the S-shaped back splat (the main upright of the chairback). All three sections had been mortised in the yoke-like top rail. Though the innovation of the back splat later had an inspiration for English chairs during the Queen Anne period, wooden pieces that could only to a particular ability support corner joints (and were loose in the bargain) are an element exclusive to Chinese chairs. The four legs pass through the seat frame, which stops around the rounded staves. Each member is round in section or is given rounded edges—acknowledging perchance to the bamboo tradition. The seat is not pleasant and may have had a plaited texture. These chairs required the sitter to stay stiff and upright; when too much pressure is exerted on the back, the chair has a tendency to topple over. In patriarchal Chinese homes of this era armchairs likely were reserved for elderly people in the family, for they were held in great respect.
The Chinese folding stool is thought 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 variation in that the top rail is delicately joined to the two legs of the stool by using a curved member, which is more often than not designed with metal mounts. From a Western perspective the ultimate effect of both furniture items is stylized. The construction and decorative issues are combined in a manner that is both naïve and refined. The patched up appearance is an upshot of the manner that the individual parts do not appear to have been adjoined by use of either glue or screws, but were mortised on 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. Works of art display a design of chair with a relatively unrefined wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, possessing two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing between, 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 little iron hooks. Thus the chair was an easily portable piece of furniture in traveling which, at the same time, had the dignity of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered kind of chair is evidenced 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. While this kind of chair might also be made in countries in which Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won critical acclaim, it is not certain that the form actually began in The Netherlands. Generally, the legs of the chair will be smooth, round in section, and of thin dimensions; they are occasionally baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is obviously a bourgeois piece of furniture and was crafted in impressive amounts, as indicated from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which there is a whole row of those chairs lined up along a wall. The design asserts itself by its shapely proportions and delicate upholstery in gilt leather or fabric framed 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—disseminated over most of Europe and was imitated or copied into the mid-20th century. The design owes the popularity to a combination of leisure and delicacy. The seat adheres to the human body and permits a relaxed sitting position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Generally the seat and back are upholstered, and there are tiny upholstered pads over the armrests. Smooth transitions are achieved between seat frame, legs, and back disguise all the joints, which are constructed on craftsmanlike principles despite the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations thereof use wood of fairly thick dimensions; but each member is deeply molded, all superfluous wood has been cut away, and more expensive chairs may be further embellished with intricately delicate and decorative engraving. The wood could 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 as an alternative to upholstery.
English chairs from the 18th century were more differentiated in style than the French. The French preference for stylistic uniformity, which lead from the royal circles in Paris and Versailles throughout 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 popularised 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 versions 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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