Of all furniture forms, the chair could be the most important. While many other items (apart from the bed) are meant to support objects, the chair supports your human form. The term chair must be regarded here in the most open sense, from stool to throne to complex types for example a bench or sofa, which might be seen 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 curious as its history as an art and craft. The chair is not just a physical support or aesthetic item; it is also an indicator of social place. At the historical royal courts there were plain signifiers between having a chair with arms, sitting on a chair with a back but without arms, or worse having to use a stool. From the 20th century, a director’s and manager’s chair has been regarded as iconic of superior standing, and in democratic parliaments the speaker sits on a high-set floor.
In its furniture creation, the chair is utilised for a variety of different models. There are chairs designed to match man’s age and physical abilities (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to show his rank in society (the executive chair, the throne). In past times there were chairs to be born in (birth chairs); since the 20th century, there have been chairs used to die in (the electric chair). We have chairs with one, two, three, or four legs, chairs with or without arms, and chairs with or without backs. We have chairs that can be folded and put away, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Our modern lifestyle has demanded unique chairs in automobiles and aircraft. Each and every one of these chair types have evolved to conform to differing human requirements. From its close connection with man, the chair lives to its full meaning only when utilised. While it is not relevant to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a set of drawers if there are items inside or not, a chair is best seen and regarded best with a person utilising it, because chair and sitter complement the other. Thus the several elements of the chair are labeled as the names of a human body: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the simple role of your chair is to support our human body, its value is evaluated generally on how fully it does fulfill this practical function. In the build of a chair, the maker is restricted in particular static regulations and principal measurements. In these boundaries, however, the chair creator has marvellous freedom.
The history of the chair covers an epoch of several thousand years. There is evidence of civilizations that held individual chair shapes, expressive of the premier endeavour in the areas of handling and art. From these such societies, special note 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 construct of expert scheme, are now a finding from findings made in tombs. The first of them is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The classical Egyptian chair would have four legs formed as akin to those of some animal, a curved seat, leading to a sloping back supported above vertical stretchers. In this design a stable triangular structure was created. There was apparently no notable difference between the construction of Egyptian thrones and chairs for regular non-royals. The general variation exists in the type of ornamentation, in the particulars of pricey inlays. The Egyptian folding stool most likely was manufactured for an easily carried seat for army officers. As a camp stool that form continued until much later points. But the stool then was designed as the role of a ceremonial seat, its technical role as a folding stool fast forgotten. This can today be seen, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, executed in ebony with ivory inlay ornamentation and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They were constructed in the structure of folding stools but can’t be folded as the seats were created out of wood. The simple make of the folding stool, made of two frames that cycle on metal bolts and support a seat of leather or fabric set between them, reappeared some time later during the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most recognisable of these is the folding stool, made from ashwood, found at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The significant Greek chair, the klismos, is known not with any ancient item still extant but in a wealth of pictorial objects. The best known is the klismos seen on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial location outside Athens (c. 410 BC). It is a chair that had a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of those could be displayed. These unique legs were most likely to be executed from bent wood and were thus put under great pressure from the weight of the sitter. The joints attaching the legs to the frame of the seat would have had to be therefore very durable and were overtly drawn.
The Romans emulated the Greek style; a number of casts of seated Romans offer chairs of a denser and which appear to be a slightly less intricately crafted klismos. Both designs, light and heavy, were brought back as part of the Classicist time. The klismos influence is evidenced in French Empire styles, in English Regency, and in some types of marked originality of Denmark and Sweden circa 1800.
China
The past of the chair in China can not be followed as far back as the history of chairs in Egypt and Greece. Since the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an unbroken series of sketches and paintings had been kept, displaying the insides and outer parts of Chinese households and the designs of furniture. Preserved also from the 16th century are some chairs constructed from wood or lacquered wood, that possess an intriguing familiarity to pictures of ancient chairs.
Just the same as in Egypt, there existed two particular chair forms in China: a chair having four legs and a folding stool. That four-legged chair can be designed both with and without arms though always having its square seat and straight stiles (vertical side supports) to firm the back. In one image, though, the stiles are slightly curved on top of the arms so as to conform correctly to the angle of the S-shaped back splat (the main upright of the back). Together, the three areas were mortised in the yoke-like top rail. Despite that the idea of a back splat had an influence on English chairs of the Queen Anne period, wooden items that just to a particular capability reinforce corner joints (and then were loose to top it off) are a design solely to Chinese chairs. The four legs sit through the seat frame, which finishes over the rounded staves. Each member is round in section or possesses rounded edges—acknowledging as may be to the bamboo tradition. The seat is unpleasant to sit in and occasionally had a plaited texture. These chairs required the sitter to remain stiff and upright; when too much pressure is forced on the back, the chair has a way of collapsing. In patriarchal Chinese households of this period armchairs likely were reserved for older people in the family, for they were held in great respect.
The Chinese folding stool is believed 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 dissimilarity in that the top rail is elegantly held to the two legs of the stool with a curved member, which is usually provided with metal mounts. From a Western perspective the overall effect of these furniture items is stylized. The manufacture and aesthetic parts are combined in a way that is simultaneously naïve and refined. The pieced-together appearance is an outcome of the way that the individual members do not look to have been put together by either glue or screws, but have been mortised into one another and fixed in position in the style of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain in the 17th century also had its name on the chair. Works of art project a design of chair with a relatively brusque wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, consisting of two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing between, stitched to produce a pattern of tiny pads. The front board and a related board from the back could be folded after loosening some little iron hooks. In this way the chair was an easily portable piece of furniture when traveling which, at the same time, possessed the dignity of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered kind of chair can be found in engravings of the interiors 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 in which Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won acclaim, it is not determined that the style actually began 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 patently a bourgeois piece of furniture and was made in impressive amounts, as indicated from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which there is a row of those chairs lined up along a wall. The style asserts itself by virtue of its harmonious proportions and fine upholstery in gilt leather or fabric edged with fringes.
France and England: 17th and 18th centuries
The French Rococo chair in its most mature of styles—that was, as developed in Paris around 1750—conquered most of Europe and was imitated or copied in the mid-20th century. The chair owes the popularity to a combination of leisure and delicacy. The seat adheres to the human body and grants 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 achieved between seat frame, legs, and back disguise all the joints, which are constructed solidly on craftsmanlike methods despite the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of them are made from wood of relatively thick density; but every member is deeply molded, all extraneous wood has been removed, and more expensive items would be further embellished with very delicate and decorative engraving. The wood might be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry can be used for all the upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; cane is sometimes used instead of upholstery.
English chairs of the 18th century were more varied in style than the French. The French taste for stylistic uniformity, which lead from the royal circles in Paris and Versailles through most of France and was popular 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 popular 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 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, suggest that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
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