Out of all furniture items, the chair might be primary. While many other items (save for the bed) are intended to support objects, the chair supports a human form. The term chair must be said here in the general sense, from stool to throne to developed pieces like the 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 overtly labeled.
The social history of the chair is as intriguing as its history as a creative craft. The chair is not just a physical support and an aesthetic craft; it is historically semiotic of social status. In the historical royal courts there were significant distinctions between being led to a chair with arms, or a chair with a back but without arms, or worse having to sit on a stool. Since the last century, the director’s or manager’s chair has been regarded as iconic of superior status, and in democratic government debate the speaker sits on a higher floor.
In its furniture form, the chair is utilised for a range of various makes. There are chairs manufactured to suit man’s age and physical capabilities (the high chair, the wheelchair) and for his rank in society (the executive chair, the throne). During the olden days there were chairs for births (birth chairs); from the 20th century, there have been chairs used for ending life (the electric chair). We have 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 and put away, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Modern day living has derived unique chairs for automobiles and aircraft. All these chair types has been adapted to match to evolving human uses. Due to its significant link with man, the chair exists to its full advantage only when in use. While it does not make any difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a chest of drawers whether there might be anything inside or not, a chair is really understood and fairly regarded by a person sitting in it, for chair and sitter complement the other. Thus the various limbs of a chair were labeled corresponding to the limbs of our human parts: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the simple purpose of the chair is to support the human body, its value is evaluated primarily from how well it does fulfill this practical function. Within the manufacture of the chair, the designer is limited within the static legislation and principal measurements. Inside these restrictions, however, the chair builder has marvellous freedom.
The history of the chair lasts over dates of several thousand years. There were civilizations that held unique chair types, expressions of the topmost endeavour in the industries of skill and aesthetics. From such 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 reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI.
Egypt
Two ancient Egyptian chair forms, both the upshot of skilled design, are now known from tomb discoveries. One of these two is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The typical Egyptian chair would have four legs formed similar to those of some animal, a curved seat, and leading to a sloping back supported over vertical stretchers. In this design a strong triangular construction was crafted. There was to all appearances no particular difference from the creation of Egyptian thrones and chairs for common populace. The general variation lied in the intricacy of ornamentation, in the particulars of more costly inlays. The Egyptian folding stool probably was developed as an easily portable seat for army soldiers. As a camp stool the stool existed until much later periods of time. But the stool then also was made for the role of a ceremonial seat, its original job as a folding stool ignored or forgotten. This can from evidence be seen, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, crafted in ebony with ivory inlay work and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They were constructed in the structure of folding stools but can’t be folded because the seats are formed from wood. The plain build of the folding stool, consisting of two frames that rotate on metal bolts and have a seat of leather or fabric secured between them, was seen again but some time later during the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most recognisable of this form is the folding stool, of ashwood, which can now be seen at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The typical Greek chair, the klismos, is known not with any ancient fossil still existing but in a wealth of pictorial items. The better known is the klismos displayed on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial ground just out of Athens (c. 410 BC). This is a chair with a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of which are visible. These creative legs were presumably crafted from bent wood and were thus subjected to great pressure from the weight of the sitter. The joints fastening the legs to the frame of the seat are therefore extremely durable and were visibly signified.
The Romans embued the Greek designs; a number of models of seated Romans offer chairs of a more heavyset and which appear to be a slightly less delicately constructed klismos. Both designs, the light and the heavy, were brought back in the Classicist period. The klismos design is used in French Empire furniture, in English Regency, and in some particular forms of notable uniqueness within Denmark and Sweden from 1800.
China
The progression of the chair in China is not able to be charted as far back as the history of the chair in Egypt and Greece. Since the time of the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) a full serial of sketches and works of art was preserved, showing the insides and exterior of Chinese households and the kinds of furniture. Another preservation of the 16th century are some chairs made of wood or lacquered wood, that display an interesting resemblance to designs of past chairs.
Same as in Egypt, there existed two iconic chair designs in China: a chair having four legs and a folding stool. That chair was designed both with or without arms though never missing a square seat and straight stiles (upright side supports) to give support to the back. In one design, however, the stiles were lightly curved on top of the arms in order to fit the shape of the S-shaped back splat (the centre upright of the back). Together, the three parts had been mortised into the yoke-like top rail. Although the innovation of the back splat later had a foundation for English chairs during the Queen Anne period, wooden pieces that would merely to a restricted extent support corner joints (and furthermore are loose additionally) represent a design solely to Chinese chairs. The four legs are set through the seat frame, which finishes upon the rounded staves. All the members are round in section or is given rounded edges—a left over as may be to the bamboo tradition. The seat is not comfortable and may have had a plaited texture. These chairs demanded of the sitter to remain stiff and upright; for when too much pressure is pushed on the back, the chair has a way of toppling over. In patriarchal Chinese households of this epoch armchairs presumably were only for senior persons in the family, for they were respected greatly.
The Chinese folding stool is presumed to have come to China from the West. It is akin very much from the Egyptian and Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a variation in that the top rail is prettily affixed to the two legs of the stool by means of a curved member, which is often possessing metal mounts. From a Western point of view the resulting effect of these two furniture designs is stylized. The manufacture and decoration aspects are combined in a manner that is all at once naïve and refined. The patchwork appearance is an outcome of the manner that the individual items do not seem to have been affixed by means of either glue or screws, but have been mortised with one another and fixed in place in the manner of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain during the 17th century also had its name on the chair. Paintings show a type of chair with a relatively brusque wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, consisting of two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing in 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. Thus the chair was a readily portable piece of furniture in traveling which, in the same era, held the dignity of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered kind of chair can be seen in engravings of the interior of affluent Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, and in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. While this design of chair can also be made in countries where Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won acclaim, it is not determined that the style actually was born in The Netherlands. Normally, the legs of the chair are smooth, round in section, and of slender dimensions; they are occasionally baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is clearly a bourgeois piece of furniture and was crafted in impressive amounts, as can be surmised from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which there is a whole row of those chairs lined up along a wall. The design asserts itself by its shapely proportions and fine 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 progressed in Paris around 1750—disseminated over most of Europe and was imitated or copied during the mid-20th century. The style owes such popularity to a combination of leisure and charm. The seat conforms to the human body and permits a relaxed sitting position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Typically the seat and back are upholstered, and there are small upholstered pads on the armrests. Smooth transitions are made between seat frame, legs, and back disguise all the joints, which are solidly constructed on craftsmanlike principles in spite of the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of those have wood of rather thick dimensions; but all members are deeply molded, all extra wood has been cut away, and more expensive designs might be further embellished with highly delicate and decorative carvings. The wood could be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry should be used for all the upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; canework is in some cases used rather than upholstery.
English chairs in the 18th century were more varied in style than the French. The French touch for stylistic uniformity, which spread from the most distinguished circles in Paris and Versailles over most of France and won favour 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 popular 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 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, hint that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
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