Out of all furniture items, the chair may be the paramount one. While most other pieces (except the bed) are designed to support objects, the chair supports the human form. The term chair was viewed here in the common sense, from stool to throne to further chairs for example the bench and 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 clearly defined.
The social history of the chair is as exciting as its history as an art and craft. The chair is not simply a physical support or an aesthetic object; it historically was a signifier of social standing. Within the past royal courts there were social differences between having a chair with arms, sitting on a chair with a back but no arms, or worse having to utilise a stool. In the recent century, the director’s or manager’s chair has developed a symbol of superior rank, and even in democratic government debate the speaker sits on a raised floor.
As its furniture form, the chair ranges from a variety of various models. There are chairs created to suit man’s age and physical capabilities (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to denote his position in society (the executive chair, the throne). During historical days there were chairs used for birthing (birth chairs); during the 20th century, there have been chairs to die in (the electric chair). We design chairs with one, two, three, and/or four legs, chairs with or without arms, and chairs with or without backs. We make chairs that can be folded, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Modern living has demanded particular chairs for use in automobiles and aircraft. Every one of these chair kinds have been adapted to match to differing human requirements. From its close relationship with man, the chair appears to its full advantage only when in employ. Whereas it is irrelevant to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a dresser drawers if there are things inside or not, a chair is really seen best and fairly evaluated by a person using it, because chair and sitter complement one another. Thus the various parts of the chair have been given names according to the names of a human body: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the fundamental role of the chair is to support the body, its value is evaluated basically by how suitably it measures up to this practical job. In the construction of a chair, the chair maker is limited in certain static regulations and principal measurements. In these boundaries, however, the chair builder has great freedom.
The history of the chair covers an epoch of several thousand years. There were cultures that had individual chair forms, as seen of the leading endeavour in the areas of technique and design. Within these societies, particular 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 lives of Louis XV and Louis XVI.
Egypt
Two ancient Egyptian chair forms, both the items of masterful design, are now a finding from tomb findings. The first one of them is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The typical Egyptian chair had four legs formed akin to those of an animal, a curved seat, and leading to a sloping back supported above vertical stretchers. From this design a strong triangular design was crafted. There was in our view no noteworthy change from the design of Egyptian thrones and chairs for typical populace. The simple variation was in the intricacy of ornamentation, in the selection of more costly inlays. The Egyptian folding stool in all likelihood was crafted as an easily stored seat for army soldiers. As a camp stool this kind stayed around during much later points in time. But the stool also was created for the character of a ceremonial seat, its original job as a folding stool neglected or forgotten. This can today be seen, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, formed in ebony with ivory inlay work and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They were constructed in the construction of folding stools but aren’t able to be folded as the seats are worked out of wood. The easy structure of the folding stool, being of two frames that spin on metal bolts and support a seat of leather or fabric secured between them, was then seen but somewhat later during the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most recognised of this type is the folding stool, crafted from ashwood, which is now seen at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The significant Greek chair, the klismos, is recognised not as any ancient object still around but as in a wealth of pictorial items. The better recognised is the klismos drawn on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial place near Athens (c. 410 BC). The klismos is a chair that had a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, only two of those would be seen. These curved legs were presumed to be created of bent wood and were likely to have been had great pressure under the weight of the sitter. The joints fastening the legs to the frame of the seat would have had to be therefore very durable and were plainly signified.
The Romans emulated the Greek designs; some statues of seated Romans show evidence of a more heavyset and are a slightly less delicately crafted klismos. Both styles, light or heavy, were brought back within the Classicist time. The klismos chair can be evidenced in French Empire furniture, in English Regency, and in some kinds of notable originality of Denmark and Sweden from 1800.
China
The past of the chair in China cannot be charted as far as the ancestry of chairs in Egypt and Greece. From the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) a full folio of images and paintings was protected, showing the inside and outer parts of Chinese buildings and the designs of furniture. Also kept since the 16th century are a trove of chairs constructed from wood or lacquered wood, that hold an amazing likeness to images of previous chairs.
Like in Egypt, there were two standard chair designs in China: a chair having four legs and a folding stool. The four-legged chair was found both with and without arms though always having the square seat and straight stiles (vertical side supports) to support the back. In one style, it must be said, the stiles had been lightly curved on top of the arms so as to sit right with the form of the S-shaped back splat (the centre upright of the chairback). The three sections were mortised into the yoke-like top rail. Despite that the innovation of the back splat later had a foundation for English chairs during the Queen Anne period, wooden members that merely to a restricted ability embolden corner joints (and are loose to top it off) signify an element exclusive to Chinese chairs. The four legs pass through the seat frame, which finishes upon the rounded staves. Every member is round in section or is given rounded edges—references perchance to the bamboo tradition. The seat is unpleasant to sit in and occasionally had a plaited bottom. These chairs demanded of the sitter to be stiff and upright; if too much pressure is placed on the back, the chair has a habit of collapsing. In patriarchal Chinese houses of this era armchairs most likely were allowed only for older persons in the family, for they were esteemed greatly.
The Chinese folding stool is understood to have been brought to China from the West. It is not dissimilar that much from the Egyptian and Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a variation in that the top rail is delicately joined to the two legs of the stool by a curved member, which is more often than not provided with metal mounts. From a Western perspective the resultant effect of both of these furniture styles is stylized. The manufacture and decorative issues are combined in a style that is all at once naïve and refined. The pieced-together appearance is an upshot of the way that the individual parts do not seem to have been fixed together with either glue or screws, but were mortised into one another and held in its place in the style of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain in the 17th century also put its mark on the chair. Artworks show a type of chair with a relatively brusque wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, having only two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing in the layers, 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 little iron hooks. Therefore the chair was an easily portable piece of furniture in traveling which, in the same time, possessed the status of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered kind of chair is evidenced in engravings of the inside of wealthy Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, as well as in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. While this type of chair can also be found in countries in which Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won critical acclaim, it is not believed that the innovation actually started in The Netherlands. Normally, the legs of the chair are smooth, round in section, and of thin measurements; they are occasionally baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is clearly a bourgeois piece of furniture and was crafted in considerable amounts, as evidenced from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which there is an entire row of such chairs lined up by a wall. The design asserts itself by its elegant proportions and expensive upholstery in gilt leather or fabric bordered with fringes.
France and England: 17th and 18th centuries
The French Rococo chair in its most mature of styles—that is, as brought out in Paris around 1750—conquered most of Europe and has been imitated or copied into the mid-20th century. The chair owes the popularity to a combination of relaxation and elegance. The seat adheres 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 small upholstered pads covering the armrests. Smooth transitions are achieved between seat frame, legs, and back disguise all the joints, which are constructed on craftsmanlike methodology in spite of the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of those use wood of rather thick dimensions; but all members are deeply molded, all extra wood has been taken away, and more expensive designs might be further embellished with special delicate and decorative woodwork. The wood may be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry should be used for all upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; cane is occasionally used rather than upholstery.
English chairs in the 18th century were more differentiated in design than the French. The French touch for stylistic uniformity, which came from the most distinguished circles in Paris and Versailles through most of France and won favour in many 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
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 brands 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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