Out of all furniture needs, the chair might be the paramount one. While most other objects (save the bed) are created to support objects, the chair supports your human form. The term chair can be viewed here in the most open sense, from stool to throne to developed forms such as a bench or sofa, which may be considered 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 exciting as its history as a creative art. The chair is not merely a physical support and aesthetic piece of art; it is historically a signifier of social placement. From the Medieval royal courts there were plain differences between possessing a chair with arms, sitting on a chair with a back but without arms, or having to utilise a stool. From the recent century, the director’s or manager’s chair has been iconic of superior rank, as well as in democratic governments the speaker sits on an elevated floor.
As its furniture purpose, the chair is used for a wealth of various models. There are chairs structured to attend to man’s age and physical capabilities (the high chair, the wheelchair) and for his standing in society (the executive chair, the throne). Since historical days there were chairs for births (birth chairs); from the 20th century, there have been chairs for ending life (the electric chair). We have chairs with one, two, three, and/or 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 lifestyle has demanded unique chairs for use in automobiles and aircraft. All these chair kinds has evolved to suit to changing human uses. Due to its unique association with man, the chair comes to its full importance only when utilised. Though it doesn’t make any difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a set of drawers whether there might be items inside or not, a chair is best seen and fairly regarded by a person utilising it, for chair and sitter complement each other. Thus the different elements of the chair were named likened to the areas of the human shape: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the fundamental work of your chair is to support a body, its worth is tested principally by how well it does measure up to this practical use. Within the design of the chair, the maker is restricted with some static regulation and principal measurements. Inside these rules, however, the chair builder has marvellous freedom.
The history of the chair is an era of several thousand years. There are cultures that had iconic chair types, as seen of the highest work in the arenas of craft and aesthetics. Out of these cultures, special 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 upshot of careful make, are today found from findings made in tombs. 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 formed not unlike those of a chosen animal, a curved seat, and a sloping back supported with vertical stretchers. From this a durable triangular structure was created. There appeared to be no significant variation from the creation of Egyptian thrones and chairs for ordinary people. The main variation was in the decorative ornamentation, in the choice of expensive inlays. The Egyptian folding stool most probably was crafted for an easily packed seat for soldiers. As a camp stool the form persisted during much later points in time. But the stool then was made for the character of a ceremonial seat, its technical role as a folding stool neglected or forgotten. This can from today be found, 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 in the construction of folding stools but can not be folded as the seats are formed with wood. The easy structure of the folding stool, being of two frames that turn on metal bolts and hold a seat of leather or fabric set between them, then came again some time later as the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The best known of this kind is the folding stool, made from ashwood, which is now found at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The significant Greek chair, the klismos, is known not in any ancient item still existing but from a large amount of pictorial material. The most recognisable is the klismos posited on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial location near Athens (c. 410 BC). It is a chair that had a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, only two of those legs could be shown. These odd legs were possibly manufactured with bent wood and were as such had to bear extreme pressure under the weight of the sitter. The joints attaching the legs to the frame of the seat were therefore super stable and were clearly denoted.
The Romans embued the Greek designs; evidence of statues of seated Romans show chairs of a heavier and are a somewhat more crudely crafted klismos. Both kinds, light or heavy, were popularised as part of the Classicist era. The klismos design is evidenced in French Empire furniture, in English Regency, and in some particular forms of considerable uniqueness within Denmark and Sweden circa 1800.
China
The history of the chair in China is not able to be tracked as well as the ancestry of the chair in Egypt and Greece. From the time of the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an unbroken collection of sketches and artworks was kept safe, with images of the interior and exteriors of Chinese buildings and the kinds of furniture. Also preserved from the 16th century are a collection of chairs crafted from wood or lacquered wood, that possess an amazing resemblance to images of ancient chairs.
Just like in Egypt, there were two fundamental chair designs in China: a chair that had four legs and a folding stool. The four-legged chair can be seen both with or without arms although never without its square seat and straight stiles (standing side supports) to hold up the back. In one kind, however, the stiles could be lightly curved by the arms for the purpose of conform correctly to the structure of the S-shaped back splat (the central upright of a back). Together, the three parts are mortised onto the yoke-like top rail. Though the style of a back splat had a foundation for English chairs in the Queen Anne period, wooden sections that could only to a restricted extent support corner joints (and are loose into the bargain) are a feature signatory to Chinese chairs. The four legs are set through the seat frame, which stops around the rounded staves. All members are round in section or have rounded edges—a left over as may be to the bamboo tradition. The seat is not comfortable and had on occasion a plaited form. These chairs required the sitter to hold themselves stiff and upright; if too much pressure is exerted on the back, the chair has a tendency to collapse. In patriarchal Chinese houses of this epoch armchairs presumably were reserved for senior persons, for they were held in great respect.
The Chinese folding stool is presumed to have been brought to China from the West. It does not differ much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a variation in that the top rail is prettily held to the two legs of the stool by a curved member, which is often designed with metal mounts. From a Western perspective the ultimate effect of these furniture forms is stylized. The constructive and decoration issues are combined in a style that is simultaneously naïve and refined. The piecemeal appearance is an outcome of the manner that the individual members do not seem to have been constructed by means of either glue or screws, but have been 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 left its name on the chair. Paintings project a kind of chair with a relatively unrefined wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, possessing two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing in between the layers, stitched to bring out a pattern of tiny pads. The front board and a related board from the back could be folded after loosening some small iron hooks. Therefore the chair was an easily portable piece of furniture while 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 wealthy 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 can also be seen in countries in which Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won acclaim, it is not decided that the style actually was instigated in The Netherlands. Normally, the legs of the chair will be smooth, round in section, and of thin measurements; they are occasionally baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is patently a bourgeois piece of furniture and was made in large quantities, as can be surmised from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which an entire row of those chairs lined up against a wall. The form asserts itself with its elegant proportions and delicate upholstery in gilt leather or fabric bordered with fringes.
France and England: 17th and 18th centuries
The French Rococo chair in its most mature form—that was, to say, as developed in Paris around 1750—disseminated through most of Europe and was imitated or copied during the mid-20th century. The design owes such popularity to a combination of relaxation and charm. The seat suits to the human body and grants 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 on the armrests. Smooth transitions are achieved between seat frame, legs, and back conceal all the joints, which are constructed solidly on craftsmanlike practices in spite of the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of those employ wood of quite thick density; but all members are deeply molded, all superfluous wood has been sanded away, and more expensive chairs might be further embellished with intricately delicate and decorative carving. The wood can be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry is often used for the upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; canework is occasionally used instead of upholstery.
English chairs in the 18th century were more varied in design than the French. The French preference for stylistic uniformity, which lead from the premier circles in Paris and Versailles over most of France and was popularised 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 reknowned and was widely distributed throughout the world.
Late 18th to 20th century
During 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, suggest that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
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