From each of the furniture forms, the chair might be the imperative one. While the majority of other forms (apart from the bed) are created to support objects, the chair supports the human form. The term chair must be said here in the common sense, from stool to throne to complex forms including a bench and sofa, which may be seen as extended or connected chairs, and whose character (i.e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining) is not evidently 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 or aesthetic piece of art; it is historically an indicator of social ranking. At the historical royal courts there were significant distinctions between being led to a chair with arms, sitting on a chair with a back but no arms, or having to cope with a stool. Since the 20th century, a director’s or manager’s chair has been seen as an identifier of superior dignity, and even in democratic parliaments the speaker sits on a high-set level.
In a furniture creation, the chair can be utilised for a range of various models. There are chairs designed to attend to man’s age and physical condition (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to indicate his position in society (the executive chair, the throne). From the olden days there were chairs to be born in (birth chairs); since 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 make chairs that can be folded, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Modern day living has developed new chairs for use in automobiles and aircraft. Each of these chair kinds have been adapted to suit to changing human requirements. From its unique connection with man, the chair exists to its full significance only when being utilised. While it does not make any difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a chest of drawers whether there might be things inside or not, a chair is understood and judged by a person sitting in it, because chair and sitter need each other. Thus the individual parts of a chair have been labeled as the limbs of the human form: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the first purpose of the chair is to support the human body, its value is judged primarily on how well it measures up to this practical purpose. In the construction of the chair, the carpenter is bound in the static regulation and principal measurements. Inside these limits, however, the chair maker has extensive freedom.
The history of the chair extends over dates of several thousand years. There is evidence of cultures that have created iconic chair shapes, expressions of the topmost craft in the arenas of handling and aesthetics. In these such peoples, particular 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 lives of Louis XV and Louis XVI.
Egypt
Two ancient Egyptian chair forms, both the structures of skilled craft, were seen from findings made in tombs. The first one of these is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The iconic Egyptian chair has four legs formed like those of some animal, a curved seat, with a sloping back supported with vertical stretchers. From this a durable triangular structure was made. There appears to be no notable difference in the design of Egyptian thrones and chairs for typical populace. The simple change exists in the intricacy of its ornamentation, in the selection of costly inlays. The Egyptian folding stool likely was crafted as an easily packed seat for soldiers. As a camp stool that form persisted til much later times. But the stool then also was designed for the role of a ceremonial seat, its technical job as a folding stool simply forgotten. This can already be observed, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, crafted in ebony with ivory inlay ornamentation and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They were constructed in the construction of folding stools but aren’t able to be folded because the seats are worked of wood. The plain construction of the folding stool, consisting of two frames that turn on metal bolts and bear a seat of leather or fabric set between them, is seen somewhat later as the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The better known of these is the folding stool, crafted from ashwood, which is now seen at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The iconic Greek chair, the klismos, is recognised not as any ancient item still extant but seen in a trove of pictorial items. The better known is the klismos placed on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial place in outer Athens (c. 410 BC). It is a chair that had a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of them can be displayed. These odd legs were presumed to be crafted with bent wood and were in that case had great pressure from the weight of the sitter. The joints holding the legs to the frame of the seat had to be therefore super stable and were overtly denoted.
The Romans borrowed from the Greek design; designs of statues of seated Romans display examples of a more heavyset and in appearance slightly more crudely crafted klismos. Both kinds, light and heavy, were popularised during the Classicist epoch. The klismos design is known in French Empire design, in English Regency, and in some special types of marked individuality of Denmark and Sweden during 1800.
China
The progression of the chair in China is not able to be traced as well as that of Egypt and Greece. From the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) a full collection of images and paintings had been kept, displaying the inside and exterior of Chinese buildings and their furniture. Preserved also from the 16th century are a collection of chairs made of wood or lacquered wood, that bear an interesting familiarity to designs of ancient chairs.
As was the case in Egypt, there was two major chair designs in China: a chair that had four legs and a folding stool. That four-legged chair has been constructed both with and without arms but never without the square seat and straight stiles (upright side supports) to give support to the back. In one style, it must be said, the stiles were marginally curved by the arms to fit the angle of the S-shaped back splat (the basic upright of its back). The three limbs had been mortised in the yoke-like top rail. Although the innovation of this back splat exercised an inspiration for English chairs of the Queen Anne period, wooden items that would merely to a particular extent embolden corner joints (and furthermore were loose into the bargain) signify a feature solely to Chinese chairs. The four legs pass through the seat frame, which ends upon the rounded staves. Every member is round in section or is given rounded edges—an acknowledgement perhaps to the bamboo tradition. The seat is unpleasant to sit in and had on occasion a plaited texture. These chairs required the sitter to hold themselves stiff and upright; for when too much weight is pushed on the back, the chair has a habit of falling over. In patriarchal Chinese houses of this epoch armchairs presumably were kept for older persons, for they were held in great esteem.
The Chinese folding stool is understood to have been brought to China from the West. It is not dissimilar that much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it has a change in that the top rail is delicately fixed to the two legs of the stool with a curved member, which is more often than not seen with metal mounts. From a Western understanding the resulting effect of these furniture forms is stylized. The structure and decoration aspects are combined in a style that is all at once both naïve and refined. The patched up appearance is an outcome of the fact that the individual members do not seem to have been adjoined with either glue or screws, but were mortised with one another and held in position in the manner 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 type of chair with a relatively unrefined wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, consisting of two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing in the layers, stitched to bring up a pattern of little pads. The front board and a corresponding board in the back could be folded after loosening some small iron hooks. In this way the chair was an easily portable piece of furniture in traveling which, at the same time, had the status of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered design of chair can be seen in engravings of interiors 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 type of chair is also seen in countries where Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won acclaim, it is not believed that the innovation actually was instigated in The Netherlands. Generally, the legs of the chair were smooth, round in section, and of thin measurements; they are occasionally baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is unquestionably a bourgeois piece of furniture and was made in vast quantities, as indicated from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which there is a row of these chairs lined up by a wall. The form asserts itself by virtue of its elegant 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 progressed in Paris around 1750—spread over most of Europe and has been imitated or copied into the mid-20th century. The model owes its popularity to a combination of comfort and elegance. The seat conforms to the human body and allows a relaxed seated 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 achieved between seat frame, legs, and back conceal all the joints, which are constructed strongly on craftsmanlike methods in spite of the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations thereof use wood of relatively thick dimensions; but every member is deeply molded, all superfluous wood has been cut away, and more upmarket chairs would be further embellished with highly delicate and decorative engraving. The wood can be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry is often used for all upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; cane is occasionally used in place of upholstery.
English chairs from the 18th century were more variable in form than the French. The French touch for stylistic uniformity, which disseminated from the royal circles in Paris and Versailles within most of France and became the favourite in several 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
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 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, suggest that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
For a great deal on executive furniture in Sydney contact Fast Office Furniture today and check our specials.
Tangalooma Island Resort is a haven found in Tangalooma, Queensland in Australia. Originally, it was a whaling station and was changed into an island getaway because of its distinctive flora and fauna and its wonderful views. Couples or families looking for a super holiday destination will undoubtedly cherish a Tangalooma Island Resort holiday.
Hawaii is home to many beautiful vacation destinations and holiday reservations to these tropical islands can be made by Travel Online. This iconic tourist destination is famous for its pristine beaches, moderate climate, world-standard shopping facilities, and unique Polynesian culture.