From all the furniture needs, the chair might be primary. While most of the other items (save the bed) are created to support objects, the chair supports our human form. The term chair is regarded here in the larger sense, from stool to throne to derivative kinds for example the bench or sofa, which may be regarded 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 curious as its history as a creative craft. The chair is not merely a physical support and/or an aesthetic piece; it was historically symbolic of social standing. Within the old royal courts there were plain differences between sitting on a chair with arms, or a chair with a back but without arms, and having to use a stool. In the past century, a director’s and/or manager’s chair has become an indicator of superior standing, like in democratic governments the speaker sits on an elevated floor.
In its furniture creation, the chair is used for a wealth of various purposes. There are chairs created to fit man’s age and physical capabilities (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to connotate his standing in society (the executive chair, the throne). From past 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, and/or four legs, chairs with or without arms, and chairs with or without backs. We can have chairs that can be folded for easy storage, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Our modern lifestyle has designated particular chairs in automobiles and aircraft. All these chair types has been changed to suit to differing human desires. Because of its unique importance with man, the chair exists to its full advantage only when in employ. Although it isn’t relevant to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a set of drawers if there might be items inside or not, a chair is understood best and regarded best by a person sitting in it, for chair and sitter complement each other. Thus the various areas of the chair are given labels likened to the names of a human parts: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the elemental work of the chair is to support a human body, its credit is tested primarily from how well it fulfills this practical use. In the structure of the chair, the designer is restricted with some static legislation and principal measurements. In these rules, however, the chair maker has awesome freedom.
The history of the chair was dates of several thousand years. There is evidence of societies that held significant chair types, expressive of the highest endeavour in the industries of craft and creativity. From these societies, 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 construct of masterful scheme, are seen from discoveries made in tombs. The first one of these is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The original Egyptian chair has four legs designed not unlike those of a chosen animal, a curved seat, and leading to a sloping back supported over vertical stretchers. From this a stable triangular structure was crafted. There seems to be no particular change in the creation of Egyptian thrones and chairs for ordinary populace. The general difference lies in the decorative ornamentation, in the particulars of more expensive inlays. The Egyptian folding stool likely was manufactured to be an easily carried seat for army officers. As a camp stool the form existed during much later periods of time. But the stool also played the task of a ceremonial seat, its mechanical job as a folding stool fast forgotten. This can already be observed, 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 are constructed in the form of folding stools but are not able to be folded because the seats were worked of wood. The simple make of the folding stool, being of two frames that cycle on metal bolts and hold a seat of leather or fabric fastened between them, appeared at some time later from the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The best recognised of those is the folding stool, made out of ashwood, which is now seen at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The archetypal Greek chair, the klismos, is recognised not as any ancient fossil still extant but found in a variety of pictorial items. The better recognised is the klismos seen on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial area 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 legs would be shown. These unique legs were understood to be crafted from bent wood and were therefore bore huge pressure with the weight of the sitter. The joints attaching the legs to the frame of the seat are therefore very solid and were particularly signified.
The Romans borrowed from the Greek style; quite a few statues of seated Romans offer chairs of a more heavyset and apparently slightly more crudely crafted klismos. Both designs, light or heavy, were popularised in the Classicist period. The klismos influence is seen in French Empire chairs, in English Regency, and in special brands of notable originality around Denmark and Sweden around 1800.
China
The past of the chair in China cannot 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 works of art has been preserved, with images of the interior and exteriors of Chinese homes and the kinds of furniture. Preserved also since the 16th century are a trove of chairs crafted of wood or lacquered wood, that show an interesting likeness to pictures of older chairs.
Just as in Egypt, there existed two particular chair designs in China: a chair with four legs and a folding stool. This four-legged chair was found both with or without arms however never without the square seat and straight stiles (upright side supports) to firm the back. In one design, however, the stiles had been lightly curved above the arms in order to sit correctly with the structure of the S-shaped back splat (the centre upright of its back). Together, all three parts had been mortised into the yoke-like top rail. While the innovation of the back splat then had an introduction for English chairs from the Queen Anne period, wooden items that would only to a limited limit stabilise corner joints (and were loose in the result) represent a design solely to Chinese chairs. The four legs are set through the seat frame, which ends upon the rounded staves. All members are round in section or is given rounded edges—acknowledging perhaps to the bamboo tradition. The seat is not pleasant and occasionally had a plaited texture. These chairs demanded of the sitter to remain stiff and upright; for when too much weight is pushed on the back, the chair has a tendency to fall over. In patriarchal Chinese houses of this era armchairs most likely were kept for older individuals, for they were greatly respected.
The Chinese folding stool is understood to have been brought to China from the West. It does not vary that much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a difference in that the top rail is delicately fixed to the two legs of the stool by a curved member, which is more often than not provided with metal mounts. From a Western understanding the resulting effect of both of these furniture items is stylized. The construction and aesthetic issues are combined in a style that is all at once both naïve and refined. The piecemeal appearance is an outcome of the fact that the individual items do not appear to have been put together by either glue or screws, but had been mortised onto 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 design of chair with a relatively crude wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, possessing two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing in between, stitched to show up a pattern of small pads. The front board and a similar board from the back could be folded after unscrewing some tiny iron hooks. Thus the chair was an easily portable piece of furniture while traveling which, during the same time, had the dignity of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered design of chair is displayed in engravings of the interior of affluent Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, as well as in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. Though this kind of chair may also be made in countries where Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won favour, it is not believed that the innovation actually was born 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 obviously a bourgeois piece of furniture and was crafted in considerable quantities, as can be surmised from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which there is a whole row of this kind of chairs lined up against a wall. The form asserts itself by virtue of its elegant proportions and expensive upholstery in gilt leather or fabric framed with fringes.
France and England: 17th and 18th centuries
The French Rococo chair in its most mature style—that was, to say, as developed in Paris around 1750—disseminated over most of Europe and has been imitated or copied into the mid-20th century. The design owes the popularity to a combination of comfort and delicacy. The seat conforms 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 small upholstered pads over the armrests. Smooth transitions achieved between seat frame, legs, and back disguise all the joints, which are constructed strongly on craftsmanlike principles even with the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of those have wood of quite thick density; but all the members are deeply molded, all extraneous wood has been removed, and finer items would be further embellished with very delicate and decorative engravings. The wood could be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry can be used for all upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; crosshatched cane is in some cases used rather than upholstery.
English chairs in the 18th century were more open in design than the French. The French touch for stylistic uniformity, which disseminated from the most distinguished circles in Paris and Versailles over most of France and was popularised 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 commonly known 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, indicate that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
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