From each of the furniture forms, the chair may be the most important. While most other pieces (save the bed) are created to support objects, the chair supports a human form. The term chair is intended to be used here in the most common sense, from stool to throne to derivative pieces including a bench or sofa, which should 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 intriguing as its history as an art and craft. The chair is not simply a physical support and/or aesthetic artwork; it is also semiotic of social placement. From the old royal courts there were plain differences between possessing a chair with arms, sitting on a chair with a back but without arms, or worse having to make do with a stool. During the last century, the director’s and/or manager’s chair has been regarded as iconic of superior status, and in democratic parliaments the speaker sits on an elevated level.
In its furniture purpose, the chair holds a wealth of various forms. There are chairs structured to attend to man’s age and physical capabilities (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to indicate his rank in society (the executive chair, the throne). From past times there were chairs for birthing (birth chairs); during the 20th century, there have been chairs to die in (the electric chair). We design chairs with one, two, three, and four legs, chairs with or without arms, and chairs with or without backs. We can have chairs that can be folded, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Modern day living has designated particular chairs in automobiles and aircraft. Every one of these chair forms has evolved to match to changing human needs. For its particular relationship with man, the chair exists to its full significance only when used. Whereas it is not relevant to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a set of drawers if there might be things inside or not, a chair is understood and fairly tested with a person sitting in it, for chair and sitter need one another. Thus the individual areas of a chair have been given labels according to the parts of the human parts: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the basic purpose of a chair is to support your body, its worth is valued generally for how well it does measure up to this practical purpose. In the manufacture of the chair, the designer is bound by some static law and principal measurements. Under these boundaries, however, the chair maker has large freedom.
The history of the chair extends over a period of several thousand years. There are civilizations that had significant chair shapes, as expressions of the leading task in the arenas of skill and creativity. Among these peoples, particular note 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 objects of careful craft, were a finding from discoveries made in tombs. One of these is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The typical Egyptian chair would have had four legs designed similar to those of a particular animal, a curved seat, with a sloping back supported over vertical stretchers. From this a strong triangular design was crafted. There was in our knowledge no significant variation from the construction of Egyptian thrones and chairs for typical non-royals. The main difference lies in the type of ornamentation, in the choice of costly inlays. The Egyptian folding stool in all probability was designed to be an easily packed seat for army soldiers. As a camp stool the stool persisted for much later points. But the stool then also existed in the task of a ceremonial seat, its original role as a folding stool being forgotten. This can from today be noted, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, executed in ebony with ivory inlay decoration and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They were in the form of folding stools but can not be folded as the seats were created of wood. The simplistic manufacture of the folding stool, composed of two frames that rotate on metal bolts and have a seat of leather or fabric set between them, is seen again at some time later during the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most recognisable of these is the folding stool, crafted from ashwood, found at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The typical Greek chair, the klismos, is found not from any ancient object still in form but from a trove of pictorial evidence. The most well known is the klismos drawn on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial ground near Athens (c. 410 BC). This is a chair with a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of which are seen. These unusual legs were presumed to be crafted with bent wood and were therefore put under a large amount of pressure from the weight of the sitter. The joints holding the legs to the frame of the seat would have had to be therefore extremely strong and were clearly indicated.
The Romans embued the Greek design; a number of models of seated Romans offer chairs of a more heavyset and are a kind of crudely constructed klismos. Both types, the light and the heavy, were brought back within the Classicist epoch. The klismos style can be seen in French Empire design, in English Regency, and in some particular kinds of profound originality around Denmark and Sweden from 1800.
China
The history of the chair in China can not be charted as far as the history of chairs in Egypt and Greece. Since the time of the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an unbroken collection of sketches and artworks has been kept, displaying the interiors and exterior of Chinese houses and their furniture. Also preserved since the 16th century are a number of chairs constructed from wood or lacquered wood, that hold an astonishing resemblance to pictures of ancient chairs.
As in Egypt, two fundamental chair forms existed in China: a chair having four legs and a folding stool. The four-legged chair can be seen both with or without arms however always with its square seat and straight stiles (vertical side supports) to support the back. In one kind, it has been seen, the stiles were delicately curved over the arms so as to conform correctly to the form of the S-shaped back splat (the basic upright of a back). Together, all three parts are mortised onto the yoke-like top rail. Despite that the design of this back splat then had an inspiration for English chairs during the Queen Anne period, wooden pieces that would only to a limited capability support corner joints (and were loose as a result) signify a feature signatory to Chinese chairs. The four legs are set through the seat frame, which finishes upon the rounded staves. Each member is round in section or is given rounded edges—acknowledging maybe to the bamboo tradition. The seat is uncomfortable and may have had a plaited texture. These chairs required the sitter to remain stiff and upright; if too much weight is exerted on the back, the chair has a way of toppling over. In patriarchal Chinese houses of this epoch armchairs presumably were kept only for older people, for they were esteemed greatly.
The Chinese folding stool is believed to have been brought to China from the West. It is akin very much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it has a dissimilarity in that the top rail is delicately held to the two legs of the stool by use of a curved member, which is usually provided with metal mounts. From a Western point of view the resulting effect of these two furniture designs is stylized. The structure and decorative issues are combined in a way that is both naïve and refined. The pieced-together appearance is a result of the fact that the individual parts do not appear to have been fixed by use of either glue or screws, but have been mortised into one another and fixed in its place in the manner 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 show a style of chair with a relatively unrefined wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, with two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing between, stitched to bring out a pattern of tiny pads. The front board and a similar board in the back could be folded after loosening some small iron hooks. Therefore the chair was a readily portable piece of furniture while traveling which, in the same period, had the dignity of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered style of chair can be seen in engravings of interiors of wealthy Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, as well as in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. While this kind of chair is also seen in countries in which Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won critical acclaim, it is not believed that the design actually was instigated in The Netherlands. Typically, the legs of the chair were smooth, round in section, and of slender dimensions; they are in some cases baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is unquestionably a bourgeois piece of furniture and was crafted in vast amounts, as indicated from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which there is an entire row of those chairs lined up by a wall. The form asserts itself by virtue of 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 was, to say, as progressed in Paris around 1750—spread through 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 delicacy. The seat adheres to the human body and allows a relaxed sitting position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Normally the seat and back are upholstered, and there are little upholstered pads covering the armrests. Smooth transitions are achieved between seat frame, legs, and back cover all the joints, which are solidly constructed on craftsmanlike practices in spite of the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of them use wood of relatively thick measurements; but all members are deeply molded, all superfluous wood has been taken away, and more upmarket chairs may be further embellished with highly delicate and decorative woodwork. The wood may be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry is generally used for all upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; crosshatched cane is in some cases used in place of upholstery.
English chairs of the 18th century were more open in form than the French. The French taste for stylistic uniformity, which came from the aristocratic circles in Paris and Versailles throughout most of France and was popular 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 popular 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 products 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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