The History of the Chair
Of all furniture forms, the chair might be paramount. While many other objects (except the bed) are devised to support objects, the chair supports a human form. The term chair is meant to be looked upon here in the common sense, from stool to throne to further types like the bench or sofa, which might be regarded as extended or connected chairs, and whose character (i.e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining) is not obviously distinuishable.
The social history of the chair is as intriguing as its history as an art and craft. The chair is not simply a physical support and/or aesthetic artwork; it was historically a signifier of social status. At the Medieval royal courts there were social distinctions between having a chair with arms, or a chair with a back but no arms, or worse having to use a stool. Since the last century, a director’s and/or manager’s chair has been regarded as a symbol of superior dignity, and even in democratic government debate the speaker sits on a higher floor.
As a furniture form, the chair holds a number of various models. There are chairs created to fit man’s age and physical condition (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to indicate his rank in society (the executive chair, the throne). Since the past there were chairs used for birth (birth chairs); from the 20th century, there have been chairs used to die in (the electric chair). We have chairs with one, two, three, and four legs, chairs with or without arms, and chairs with or without backs. There are chairs that can be folded up, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Our lifestyle has developed particular chairs in automobiles and aircraft. Each and every one of these chair kinds have been perfected to match to different human desires. Due to its significant relationship with man, the chair appears to its full significance only when being used. Whereas it does not make a difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a dresser drawers whether there is anything inside or not, a chair is understood best and evaluated with a person sitting in it, for chair and sitter require each other. Thus the different limbs of a chair are given names like the areas of a human form: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the primary function of your chair is to support the human body, its worth is valued generally for how well it does fulfill this practical purpose. In the construction of a chair, the carpenter is limited by certain static rules and principal measurements. In these limits, however, the chair creator has great freedom.
The history of the chair lasts over an era of several thousand years. There existed societies that had unique chair forms, as seen of the premier task in the arenas of technique and aesthetics. Among those societies, individual mention 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 result of skilled scheme, are now found from tomb discoveries. The first of these two is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The original Egyptian chair would have had four legs designed similar to those of a designated animal, a curved seat, and a sloping back supported by vertical stretchers. From this design a strong triangular construction was made. There appears to be no notable difference between the design of Egyptian thrones and chairs for common peasantry. The general change exists in the brand of ornamentation, in the selection of more valuable inlays. The Egyptian folding stool likely was made as an easily stored seat for army. As a camp stool that chair stayed around until much later times. But the stool then existed in the purpose of a ceremonial seat, its original task as a folding stool ignored or forgotten. This can from today’s evidence be observed, 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 in the construction of folding stools but aren’t able to be folded because the seats are formed from wood. The easy manufacture of the folding stool, consisting of two frames that rotate on metal bolts and hold a seat of leather or fabric secured between them, reappeared but some time later in the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The best known of this type is the folding stool, crafted from ashwood, which can now be found at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The typical Greek chair, the klismos, is recognised not in any ancient object still around but from a large amount of pictorial items. The better known is the klismos displayed on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial place by Athens (c. 410 BC). It is a chair with a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of them would be visible. These curved legs were possibly crafted from bent wood and were therefore put under extreme pressure under the weight of the sitter. The joints holding the legs to the frame of the seat are therefore super solid and were particularly signified.
The Romans emulated the Greek design; a number of statues of seated Romans offer examples of a thicker and which appear to be a kind of more crudely built klismos. Both kinds, the light or heavy, were seen again as part of the Classicist epoch. The klismos chair can be seen in French Empire styles, in English Regency, and in some types of considerable iconicism of Denmark and Sweden during 1800.
China
The progression of the chair in China is not able to be followed as far back as the progression of the chairs in Egypt and Greece. From the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) a full folio of drawings and artworks has been preserved, detailing the interior and outside of Chinese homes and the designs of furniture. Also preserved of the 16th century are a number of chairs of wood or lacquered wood, that bear an amazing likeness to designs of older chairs.
Same as in Egypt, there existed two iconic chair designs in China: a chair having four legs and a folding stool. That chair can be designed both with and without arms though always with its square seat and straight stiles (standing side supports) to firm the back. In one image, it has been found, the stiles had been delicately curved over the arms so as to conform to the form of the S-shaped back splat (the basic upright of a back). Together, all three areas had been mortised onto the yoke-like top rail. Though the design of the Chinese back splat later had a foundation for English chairs in the Queen Anne period, wooden sections that would merely to a restricted capability support corner joints (and are loose into the bargain) represent a signature solely to Chinese chairs. The four legs are set through the seat frame, which stops over the rounded staves. Each member is round in section or is given rounded edges—acknowledging perchance to the bamboo tradition. The seat is unpleasant to sit in and had on occasion a plaited bottom. These chairs demanded of the sitter to remain stiff and upright; for when too much pressure is exerted on the back, the chair has a tendency to fall. In patriarchal Chinese houses of this epoch armchairs most likely were only for the senior people in the family, for they were respected greatly.
The Chinese folding stool is presumed to have taken to China from the West. It is not dissimilar that much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it has a change in that the top rail is delicately joined to the two legs of the stool with a curved member, which is more often than not provided with metal mounts. From a Western point of view the ultimate effect of both these furniture designs is stylized. The structure and aesthetic issues are combined in a manner that is all at once both naïve and refined. The pieced-together appearance is an outcome of the fact that the individual parts do not appear to have been joined together by use of either glue or screws, but had been mortised on one another and locked into its place in the style of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain in the 17th century also put its signature on the chair. Artworks show a kind 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 bring up a pattern of tiny pads. The front board and a corresponding 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 while traveling which, at the same era, held the dignity of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered design of chair can be found in engravings of interiors of wealthy Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, as well as in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. Although this kind of chair might also be found in countries where Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won critical acclaim, it is not determined that the innovation actually started in The Netherlands. Typically, the legs of the chair will be smooth, round in section, and of slim shape; they are in some cases baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is unquestionably a bourgeois piece of furniture and was manufactured in impressive amounts, as can be seen from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which an entire row of those chairs lined up against a wall. The form asserts itself by virtue of its shapely 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 form—that is to say, as brought out in Paris around 1750—spread through most of Europe and was imitated or copied in the mid-20th century. The style owes such popularity to a combination of relaxation and delicacy. The seat adheres 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 little upholstered pads covering 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 thereof are made from wood of relatively thick measurements; but each member is deeply molded, all superfluous wood has been cut away, and more expensive designs may be further embellished with intricately delicate and decorative woodwork. The wood may be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry may be used for any upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; cane is in some cases used as an alternative to upholstery.
English chairs of the 18th century were more varied in design than the French. The French preference for stylistic uniformity, which disseminated from the most distinguished circles in Paris and Versailles throughout most of France and found favour 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
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 products 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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