From all the furniture items, the chair might be paramount. While the majority of other objects (save the bed) are created to support objects, the chair supports a human form. The term chair was said here in the larger sense, from stool to throne to further forms including 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 evidently defined.
The social history of the chair is as interesting as its history as a creative art. The chair is not simply a physical support and aesthetic piece; it historically is semiotic of social placement. From the historical royal courts there were social signifiers between sitting on a chair with arms, or a chair with a back but no arms, or having to make do with a stool. During the recent century, a director’s and manager’s chair has been a symbol of superior rank, as well as in democratic parliaments the speaker sits on a higher level.
As its furniture construction, the chair is used for a range of various forms. There are chairs manufactured to fit man’s age and physical abilities (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to denote his status in society (the executive chair, the throne). From the past there were chairs for births (birth chairs); during the 20th century, there have been chairs used to die in (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 for easy storage, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Modern living has derived special chairs in automobiles and aircraft. All of these chair kinds has been changed to suit to growing human needs. Because of its unique link with man, the chair exists to its full importance only when being utilised. Whereas it doesn’t make any difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a set of drawers if there might be items inside or not, a chair is best seen and evaluated by a person sitting on it, because chair and sitter need the other. Thus the individual limbs of the chair are given names as the parts of a human shape: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the clear job of a chair is to support our body, its credit is evaluated primarily on how fully it does measure up to this practical use. Within the build of a chair, the chair maker is restricted under some static legislation and principal measurements. Inside these regulations, however, the chair builder has extensive freedom.
The history of the chair covers an era of several thousand years. There were civilizations that have created significant chair forms, expressions of the principal endeavour in the areas of technique and art. From these such societies, individual 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 construct of expert make, are seen from tomb discoveries. One of the two is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The iconic Egyptian chair had four legs structured similar to those of a designated animal, a curved seat, and a sloping back supported from vertical stretchers. In this design a durable triangular structure was obtained. There was to our understanding no notable difference in the structure of Egyptian thrones and chairs for regular people. The only change exists in the complex ornamentation, in the evidence of pricey inlays. The Egyptian folding stool in all probability was designed as an easily packed seat for army officers. As a camp stool this form persisted during much later points in time. But the stool also existed in the role of a ceremonial seat, its technical function as a folding stool ignored or forgotten. This can from evidence be noted, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, crafted in ebony with ivory inlay decoration and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They were made in the form of folding stools but cannot be folded because the seats are worked with wood. The simplistic manufacture of the folding stool, being of two frames that spin on metal bolts and bear a seat of leather or fabric fastened between them, then came up some time later from the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most recognisable of this type is the folding stool, made out of ashwood, which is now found at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The significant Greek chair, the klismos, is found not from any ancient fossil still in form but in a trove of pictorial material. The archetype is the klismos placed on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial ground near Athens (c. 410 BC). The klismos is a chair with a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of those can be visible. These curving legs were presumed to be executed in bent wood and were therefore had 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 extremely strong and were particularly pointed out.
The Romans borrowed from the Greek chair; designs of models of seated Romans are examples of a heavier and are a rather crudely built klismos. Both types, the light and heavy, were seen again within the Classicist era. The klismos influence is used in French Empire furniture, in English Regency, and in special brands of considerable originality within Denmark and Sweden during 1800.
China
The progression of the chair in China is not able to be traced as well as the history of chairs in Egypt and Greece. Since the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an unbroken collection of drawings and artworks was kept safe, with images of the inside and outside of Chinese houses and the kinds of furniture. Kept also since the 16th century are a number of chairs crafted from wood or lacquered wood, that bear an intriguing likeness to pictures of older chairs.
Just like in Egypt, there existed two fundamental chair designs in China: a chair of four legs and a folding stool. This four-legged chair has been seen both with or without arms though never missing the square seat and straight stiles (straight side supports) to firm the back. In one type, it has been found, the stiles were delicately curved over the arms in order to fit the structure of the S-shaped back splat (the centre upright of a back). Each of the three parts had been mortised into the yoke-like top rail. Despite that the design of the Chinese back splat had an introduction for English chairs of the Queen Anne period, wooden members that could only to a restricted capability stabilise corner joints (and then are loose into the bargain) represent an element exclusive to Chinese chairs. The four legs are set through the seat frame, which closes about the rounded staves. All members are round in section or have rounded edges—referable perchance to the bamboo tradition. The seat is not comfortable and had on occasion a plaited texture. These chairs needed the sitter to hold themselves stiff and upright; for if too much pressure is exerted on the back, the chair has a habit of collapsing. In patriarchal Chinese households of this era armchairs presumably were reserved for elderly people, for they were given great respect.
The Chinese folding stool is presumed to have travelled to China from the West. It does not vary so very much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it has a dissimilarity in that the top rail is intricately fixed to the two legs of the stool in a curved member, which is often provided with metal mounts. From a Western point of view the resultant effect of these furniture styles is stylized. The constructive and decorative parts are combined in a manner that is both naïve and refined. The piecemeal appearance is a result of the fact that the individual members do not appear to have been held together by means of either glue or screws, but were mortised into one another and fixed in position in the manner of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain in the 17th century also left its mark on the chair. Paintings project 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 produce a pattern of little pads. The front board and a related board at the back could be folded after unscrewing some small iron hooks. Thus the chair was a readily portable piece of furniture in traveling which, during the same time, gave the dignity of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered style of chair is evidenced in engravings of interiors of affluent Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, as well as in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. Although this design of chair may also be seen in countries in which Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won critical acclaim, it is not held that the innovation actually was instigated in The Netherlands. Generally, the legs of the chair were smooth, round in section, and of slim dimensions; they are in some cases baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is clearly a bourgeois piece of furniture and was crafted in large quantities, as surmisable from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which a whole row of those chairs lined up against a wall. The style asserts itself by virtue of 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 was, as created in Paris around 1750—disseminated over most of Europe and has been imitated or copied in the mid-20th century. The design owes this popularity to a combination of leisure and elegance. The seat conforms to the human body and grants a relaxed sitting position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Usually the seat and back are upholstered, and there are small upholstered pads covering the armrests. Smooth transitions made between seat frame, legs, and back cover all the joints, which are solidly constructed on craftsmanlike principles despite the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of them employ wood of fairly thick density; but all the members are deeply molded, all extraneous wood has been removed, and finer chairs may be further embellished with special delicate and decorative carving. The wood might be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry is often used for all of the upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; canework is in some cases used in place of upholstery.
English chairs from the 18th century were more variable in form than the French. The French manner for stylistic uniformity, which spread from the most distinguished circles in Paris and Versailles throughout most of France and found favour 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 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 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, purport that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
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