Out of each of the furniture items, the chair might be primary. While the majority of other items (except the bed) are meant to support objects, the chair supports the human form. The term chair can be viewed here in the most general sense, from stool to throne to derivative kinds including a bench or sofa, which can be considered as extended or connected chairs, and whose character (i.e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining) is not overtly distinuishable.
The social history of the chair is as curious as its history as a creative craft. The chair is not just a physical support or aesthetic craft; it is historically a signifier of social rank. In the old royal courts there were plain connotations between being led to a chair with arms, sitting on a chair with a back but without arms, or worse having to make do with a stool. In the recent century, a director’s and manager’s chair has developed a signifier of superior rank, and in democratic governments the speaker sits on a higher level.
As its furniture purpose, the chair is utilised for a variety of different makes. There are chairs manufactured to fit man’s age and physical capabilities (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to show his standing in society (the executive chair, the throne). From past days there were chairs used for birthing (birth chairs); since the 20th century, there have been chairs used for ending life (the electric chair). There are chairs with one, two, three, and four legs, chairs with or without arms, and chairs with or without backs. We have chairs that can be folded, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Modern day living has demanded special chairs for use in automobiles and aircraft. All these chair kinds have evolved to match to changing human desires. For its unique connection with man, the chair appears to its full importance only when in use. While it isn’t relevant to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a chest of drawers if there might be things inside or not, a chair is understood best and evaluated by a person using it, for chair and sitter suit each other. Thus the individual parts of a chair are given names according to the names of our human parts: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the basic job of the chair is to support our body, its value is tested firstly from how well it measures up to this practical use. Within the structure of a chair, the maker is limited by certain static regulations and principal measurements. Under these limitations, however, the chair builder has large freedom.
The history of the chair extended over a period of several thousand years. There were civilizations that held distinctive chair forms, as expressive of the topmost object in the arenas of craft and aesthetics. Within those civilisations, special mention should 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 result of careful craft, are seen from tombs. The first one of these two is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The iconic Egyptian chair would have had four legs shaped as akin to those of an animal, a curved seat, and a sloping back supported over vertical stretchers. From this design a strong triangular design was crafted. There was in our understanding no notable change from the structure of Egyptian thrones and chairs for typical citizens. The simple difference lies in the intricacy of its ornamentation, in the selection of expensive inlays. The Egyptian folding stool likely was designed as an easily portable seat for army officers. As a camp stool the chair persisted til much later points in time. But the stool then was designed for the character of a ceremonial seat, its original function as a folding stool neglected or forgotten. This can from evidence be found, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, created in ebony with ivory inlay ornamentation and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They were constructed in the structure of folding stools but cannot be folded because the seats were created out of wood. The easy structure of the folding stool, consisting of two frames that spin on metal bolts and have a seat of leather or fabric secured between them, then came again but some time later during the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The better known of these is the folding stool, made of ashwood, found at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The unique Greek chair, the klismos, is known not with any ancient specimen still extant but as found in a large amount of pictorial material. The best known is the klismos seen on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial location 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 were displayed. These odd legs were probably crafted from bent wood and were therefore bore huge pressure under the weight of the sitter. The joints fastening the legs to the frame of the seat would have had to be therefore extremely solid and were visibly pointed out.
The Romans emulated the Greek designs; existing statues of seated Romans offer chairs of a heavier and apparently slightly more crudely crafted klismos. Both designs, the light or heavy, were seen again within the Classicist time. The klismos chair can be seen in French Empire furniture, in English Regency, and in some particular types of profound iconicism around Denmark and Sweden circa 1800.
China
The progression of the chair in China can not be traced as far as the history of chairs in Egypt and Greece. Since the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an undamaged series of sketches and works of art had been kept, displaying the insides and exteriors of Chinese houses and the designs of furniture. Also kept of the 16th century are a trove of chairs constructed from wood or lacquered wood, that display an interesting likeness to designs of past chairs.
As were the designs in Egypt, there were two particular chair designs in China: a chair that had four legs and a folding stool. This chair is found both with and without arms although never without the square seat and straight stiles (upright side supports) to support the back. In one design, though, the stiles could be lightly curved over the arms in order to conform correctly to the angle of the S-shaped back splat (the centre upright of a chairback). Each of the three areas were mortised into the yoke-like top rail. Although the innovation of a back splat later had an introduction for English chairs within the Queen Anne period, wooden items that could merely to a particular limit embolden corner joints (and are loose to top it off) represent a design solely to Chinese chairs. The four legs sit through the seat frame, which stops about the rounded staves. All members are round in section or have rounded edges—an acknowledgement perchance to the bamboo tradition. The seat is unpleasant to sit in and may have a plaited bottom. These chairs demanded of the sitter to be stiff and upright; when too much pressure is pushed on the back, the chair has a habit of toppling over. In patriarchal Chinese households of this period armchairs likely were allowed only for older persons, for they were esteemed greatly.
The Chinese folding stool is thought 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 variation in that the top rail is prettily joined to the two legs of the stool with a curved member, which is generally seen with metal mounts. From a Western perspective the resultant effect of both of these furniture items is stylized. The manufacture and decorative parts are combined in a manner that is all at once naïve and refined. The patchwork appearance is a result of the way that the individual parts do not appear to have been fixed together by either glue or screws, but have been mortised on one another and locked into position in the manner of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain during the 17th century also left its signature on the chair. Artworks show a design of chair with a relatively unrefined wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, with two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing in between, stitched to show up a pattern of little pads. The front board and a similar board at the back could be folded after loosening some tiny iron hooks. Thus the chair was an easily portable piece of furniture in traveling which, in the same time, held the status of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered design of chair can be displayed in engravings of the inside of rich Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, and in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. While this style of chair may also be found in countries in which Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won preference, it is not believed that the form actually started in The Netherlands. Normally, the legs of the chair were smooth, round in section, and of thin shape; they are sometimes baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is clearly a bourgeois piece of furniture and was made in large amounts, as can be surmised from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which there is an entire row of those chairs lined up along a wall. The design asserts itself with its harmonious 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 form—that was, as developed in Paris around 1750—spread over most of Europe and has been imitated or copied in the mid-20th century. The style owes such popularity to a combination of leisure and delicacy. The seat adheres to the human body and allows a relaxed seated position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Normally the seat and back are upholstered, and there are small upholstered pads covering the armrests. Smooth transitions achieved between seat frame, legs, and back conceal all the joints, which are solidly constructed on craftsmanlike methodology even with the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of those are constructed from wood of fairly thick dimensions; but all members are deeply molded, all extraneous wood has been cut away, and more upmarket items can be further embellished with intricately delicate and decorative woodwork. The wood could be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry is usually used for all the upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; canework is sometimes used in place of upholstery.
English chairs of the 18th century were more varied in form than the French. The French manner for stylistic uniformity, which spread from the premier circles in Paris and Versailles through 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 well-known 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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