Out of each of the furniture needs, the chair could be paramount. While most of the other forms (save for the bed) are designed to support objects, the chair supports your human form. The term chair is intended to be said here in the larger sense, from stool to throne to developed makes for example a bench or 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 evidently defined.
The social history of the chair is as exciting as its history as a creative craft. The chair is not only a physical support or an aesthetic piece; it is historically a signifier of social placement. Within the historical royal courts there were plain differences between possessing a chair with arms, on a chair with a back but without arms, or worse having to squat on a stool. From the recent century, a director’s or manager’s chair has become an indicator of superior standing, as well as in democratic governments the speaker sits on a high-set floor.
As a furniture construction, the chair holds a variety of various purposes. There are chairs designed to match man’s age and physical capabilities (the high chair, the wheelchair) and for his status in society (the executive chair, the throne). In the past there were chairs used for birth (birth chairs); since 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. There are chairs that can be folded and put away, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Our contemporary lifestyle has demanded unique chairs for automobiles and aircraft. Each and every one of these chair types have adapted to conform to differing human needs. For its significant connection with man, the chair comes to its full significance only when used. Though it does not make any difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a chest of drawers if there is anything inside or not, a chair is understood best and fairly regarded with a person sitting in it, because chair and sitter suit one another. Thus the several elements of the chair were named likened to the parts of a human body: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the simple job of the chair is to support the body, its value is valued primarily on how well it fulfills this practical function. In the construction of a chair, the designer is bound for certain static regulations and principal measurements. In these rules, however, the chair maker has extensive freedom.
The history of the chair extends over dates of several thousand years. There existed societies that held significant chair forms, as expressive of the premier work in the areas of handling and aesthetics. Within these civilisations, 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 ascendancy of Louis XV and Louis XVI.
Egypt
Two ancient Egyptian chair forms, both the construct of masterful make, were seen from tomb discoveries. The first one of these two is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The classical Egyptian chair would have had four legs shaped as akin to those of some animal, a curved seat, leading to a sloping back supported from vertical stretchers. In this way a durable triangular form was made. There seems to be no notable differentiation from the creation of Egyptian thrones and chairs for typical people. The general difference lies in the complexity of ornamentation, in the selection of more expensive inlays. The Egyptian folding stool probably was crafted for an easily portable seat for army soldiers. As a camp stool this stool stayed around til much later periods of time. But the stool then took on the use of a ceremonial seat, its technical job as a folding stool being forgotten. This can already be found, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, executed in ebony with ivory inlay ornamentation and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They were in the construction of folding stools but are not able to be folded because the seats were worked of wood. The simplistic structure of the folding stool, consisting of two frames that spin on metal bolts and bear a seat of leather or fabric set between them, then came up at some time later in the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The best known of this kind is the folding stool, made of ashwood, found at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The iconic Greek chair, the klismos, is found not in any ancient object still extant but as seen from a trove of pictorial material. The most recognisable is the klismos placed on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial location in outer Athens (c. 410 BC). The klismos is a chair that had a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of those were displayed. These odd legs were thought to be crafted with bent wood and were likely to have been had to bear extreme pressure from the weight of the sitter. The joints attaching the legs to the frame of the seat had to be therefore super durable and were clearly indicated.
The Romans adopted the Greek designs; quite a few models of seated Romans offer designs of a denser and in appearance somewhat less delicately built klismos. Both features, the light and the heavy, were brought back within the Classicist time. The klismos style is found in French Empire chairs, in English Regency, and in some brands of considerable individuality around Denmark and Sweden during 1800.
China
The history of the chair in China cannot be followed as far back as the history of chairs in Egypt and Greece. From the time of the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an unbroken series of images and artworks has been kept safe, with images of the interior and exteriors of Chinese houses and the designs of furniture. Kept also of the 16th century are some chairs of wood or lacquered wood, that show an intriguing resemblance to pictures of ancient chairs.
As was the case in Egypt, there existed two particular chair forms in China: a chair that had four legs and a folding stool. That four-legged chair can be constructed both with and without arms however always having a square seat and straight stiles (vertical side supports) to give support to the back. In one image, though, the stiles are lightly curved by the arms so as to fit the angle of the S-shaped back splat (the basic upright of its back). Each of the three sections had been mortised on the yoke-like top rail. Though the innovation of the back splat then had an influence on English chairs of the Queen Anne period, wooden pieces that just to a particular extent stabilise corner joints (as well as being loose to top it off) represent a signature exclusive to Chinese chairs. The four legs sit through the seat frame, which stops around the rounded staves. Each member is round in section or has rounded edges—acknowledging perhaps to the bamboo tradition. The seat is uncomfortable and may have had a plaited texture. These chairs needed the sitter to be stiff and upright; when too much pressure is exerted on the back, the chair has a habit of toppling over. In patriarchal Chinese houses of this era armchairs likely were reserved only for the senior persons in the family, for they were respected greatly.
The Chinese folding stool is believed to have been brought to China from the West. It does not differ very much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a dissimilarity in that the top rail is intricately held to the two legs of the stool in a curved member, which is more often than not provided with metal mounts. From a Western point of view the resulting effect of both of these furniture forms is stylized. The constructive and decoration elements are combined in a way that is both naïve and refined. The patched up appearance is a result of the manner that the individual items do not seem to have been constructed with either glue or screws, but were mortised with one another and held in place in the style of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain in the 17th century also put its mark on the chair. Works of art display a design of chair with a relatively brusque wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, having only two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing between the layers, stitched to show 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. Therefore the chair was a portable piece of furniture for traveling which, in the same time, gave the dignity of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered style of chair can be evidenced in engravings of the interior of rich Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, and in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. While this type of chair may also be seen in countries in which Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won favour, it is not believed that the form actually started in The Netherlands. Generally, the legs of the chair will be smooth, round in section, and of slender dimensions; they are in some cases baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is clearly a bourgeois piece of furniture and was made in considerable numbers, as can be surmised from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which a whole row of those chairs lined up against a wall. The design asserts itself by 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 of styles—that was, as developed in Paris around 1750—conquered most of Europe and was imitated or copied during the mid-20th century. The style owes such popularity to a combination of comfort and charm. The seat adheres to the human body and permits a relaxed sitting position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Usually the seat and back are upholstered, and there are tiny upholstered pads on the armrests. Smooth transitions achieved between seat frame, legs, and back cover all the joints, which are constructed on craftsmanlike methodology in spite of the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of those have wood of fairly thick dimensions; but every member is deeply molded, all superfluous wood has been cut away, and more expensive items would be further embellished with special delicate and decorative carving. The wood can be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry is often used for all the upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; crosshatched cane is occasionally used rather than upholstery.
English chairs from the 18th century were more differentiated in style than the French. The French preference for stylistic uniformity, which came from the aristocratic circles in Paris and Versailles over most of France and was popularised in many 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 reknowned 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 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, hint that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
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