Out of each of the furniture forms, the chair might be the imperative one. While many other pieces (apart from the bed) are designed to support objects, the chair supports a human form. The term chair is intended to be viewed here in the wider sense, from stool to throne to complex kinds like the bench or sofa, which can be looked upon as extended or connected chairs, and whose character (i.e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining) is not clearly definitive.
The social history of the chair is as intriguing as its history as a creative craft. The chair is not simply a physical support and an aesthetic creation; it was also a symbol of social ranking. At the historical royal courts there were social signifiers between being seated on a chair with arms, on a chair with a back but no arms, and having to squat on a stool. Since the 20th century, the director’s and manager’s chair has been seen as a symbol of superior position, like in democratic government meeting the speaker sits on an elevated floor.
In a furniture form, the chair can be employed for a wealth of various models. There are chairs manufactured to attend to man’s age and physical capabilities (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to denote his standing in society (the executive chair, the throne). From historical days there were chairs for births (birth chairs); in 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, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Our modern lifestyle has demanded unique chairs for use in automobiles and aircraft. Every one of these chair kinds have been evolved to conform to growing human desires. From its close association with man, the chair lives to its full purpose only when used. Although it is irrelevant to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a chest of drawers if there might be items inside or not, a chair is really seen best and fairly regarded by a person sitting on it, because chair and sitter complement each other. Thus the individual parts of a chair were given names like the areas of a human body: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the first work of a chair is to support the body, its credit is judged generally on how suitably it does measure up to this practical job. Within the manufacture of the chair, the maker is restricted under some static regulation and principal measurements. Under these limitations, however, the chair designer has extensive freedom.
The history of the chair covered an epoch of several thousand years. There existed peoples that created significant chair forms, seen of the leading craft in the arenas of skill and aesthetics. Out of these such peoples, particular mention must 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 ascendancy of Louis XV and Louis XVI.
Egypt
Two ancient Egyptian chair forms, both the construct of masterful make, are today seen from findings made in tombs. First of them is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The original Egyptian chair had four legs structured like those of a particular animal, a curved seat, and leading to a sloping back supported with vertical stretchers. In this design a strong triangular construction was crafted. There was apparently no significant change between the creation of Egyptian thrones and chairs for common peasantry. The real change was in the type of ornamentation, in the particulars of pricier inlays. The Egyptian folding stool most probably was created as an easily carried seat for soldiers. As a camp stool the form existed until much later days. But the stool then was created for the role of a ceremonial seat, its mechanical function as a folding stool ignored or forgotten. This can already be observed, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, executed in ebony with ivory inlay work and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They are constructed in the shape of folding stools but can not be folded as the seats are formed out of wood. The plain build of the folding stool, consisting of two frames that cycle on metal bolts and have a seat of leather or fabric held between them, reappears somewhat later during the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The best known of this kind is the folding stool, made of ashwood, now found at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The iconic Greek chair, the klismos, is found not in any ancient fossil still around but seen in a trove of pictorial material. The better known is the klismos seen on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial area by Athens (c. 410 BC). The klismos is a chair that had a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of them could be seen. These curved legs were thought to have been manufactured of bent wood and were thus had great pressure under the weight of the sitter. The joints attaching the legs to the frame of the seat had to be therefore very solid and were clearly indicated.
The Romans embued the Greek design; evidence of statues of seated Romans display designs of a thicker and are a somewhat more crudely constructed klismos. Both kinds, the light and the heavy, were revived as part of the Classicist time. The klismos style is found in French Empire furniture, in English Regency, and in special brands of marked iconicism in Denmark and Sweden from 1800.
China
The history of the chair in China is not able to be traced as far as in Egypt and Greece. Since the time of the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an unscathed series of sketches and artworks was kept, detailing the interiors and outer parts of Chinese homes and the designs of furniture. Another preservation from the 16th century are a number of chairs made of wood or lacquered wood, that bear an interesting resemblance to images of older chairs.
Just like in Egypt, there was two major chair designs in China: a chair having four legs and a folding stool. That chair has been seen both with or without arms though always having its square seat and straight stiles (straight side supports) to support the back. In one type, it has been found, the stiles could be marginally curved on top of the arms in order to conform to the form of the S-shaped back splat (the basic upright of a back). Together, the three parts had been mortised onto the yoke-like top rail. Though the idea of a back splat later had an inspiration for English chairs of the Queen Anne period, wooden items that could merely to a particular limit stabilise corner joints (as well as being loose in the result) indicate a feature signatory to Chinese chairs. The four legs are set through the seat frame, which finishes over the rounded staves. All the members are round in section or has rounded edges—a left over perhaps to the bamboo tradition. The seat is not comfortable and might have had a plaited form. These chairs required the sitter to hold themselves stiff and upright; if too much weight is pushed on the back, the chair has a way of toppling. In patriarchal Chinese homes of this period armchairs presumably were kept only for the senior people in the family, for they were esteemed greatly.
The Chinese folding stool is thought to have been brought to China from the West. It is not dissimilar so very much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a dissimilarity in that the top rail is delicately joined to the two legs of the stool in a curved member, which is more often than not possessing metal mounts. From a Western perspective the ultimate effect of these furniture items is stylized. The construction and aesthetic issues are combined in a way that is all at once both naïve and refined. The patched up appearance is a result of the way that the individual members do not seem to have been constructed by means of either glue or screws, but were mortised with one another and locked into place in the manner of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain in the 17th century also left its signature on the chair. Artworks show a type of chair with a relatively brusque wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, possessing two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing in between the layers, stitched to bring out a pattern of little pads. The front board and a similar board at the back could be folded after unscrewing some tiny iron hooks. Thus the chair was a portable piece of furniture when traveling which, in the same time, possessed the dignity of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered style of chair is evidenced in engravings of the interiors of affluent Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, and also in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. While this type of chair may also be found in countries in which Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won preference, it is not determined that the style actually originated in The Netherlands. Generally, the legs of the chair will be smooth, round in section, and of slender dimensions; they are sometimes baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is clearly a bourgeois piece of furniture and was manufactured in impressive amounts, as can be surmised from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which there is an entire row of this kind of chairs lined up against a wall. The style asserts itself by its harmonious proportions and fine 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 was, 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 this popularity to a combination of comfort and elegance. The seat adheres to the human body and allows a relaxed sitting position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Typically the seat and back are upholstered, and there are tiny upholstered pads over the armrests. Smooth transitions are made between seat frame, legs, and back disguise all the joints, which are stable, constructed on craftsmanlike practices even with the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of those employ wood of rather thick measurements; but every member is deeply molded, all extraneous wood has been removed, and more upmarket chairs may be further embellished with intricately delicate and decorative carvings. The wood can be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry can be used for any upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; cane is in some cases used rather than upholstery.
English chairs of the 18th century were more differentiated in design than the French. The French taste for stylistic uniformity, which lead from the most distinguished circles in Paris and Versailles over most of France and became the favourite 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, purport that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
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