From all the furniture forms, the chair could be of most importance. While many other pieces (save the bed) are meant to support objects, the chair supports our human form. The term chair must be viewed here in the most general sense, from stool to throne to derivative pieces such as the bench and sofa, which should be seen as extended or connected chairs, and whose character (i.e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining) is not obviously defined.
The social history of the chair is as intriguing as its history as an art and craft. The chair is not only a physical support or aesthetic artwork; it historically was a symbol of social placement. From the Medieval royal courts there were significant signifiers between sitting on a chair with arms, or a chair with a back but no arms, or having to use a stool. During the last century, a director’s and manager’s chair has developed an identifier of superior position, like in democratic governments the speaker sits on an elevated floor.
As its furniture creation, the chair is used for a range of various purposes. There are chairs designed to fit man’s age and physical form (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to denote his position in society (the executive chair, the throne). In historical times there were chairs for birthing (birth chairs); in the 20th century, there have been chairs to die in (the electric chair). There are chairs with one, two, three, or four legs, chairs with or without arms, and chairs with or without backs. We can make chairs that can be folded and put away, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Our contemporary lifestyle has derived unique chairs for automobiles and aircraft. Each of these chair kinds have perfected to match to evolving human requirements. Due to its significant connection with man, the chair appears to its full purpose only when utilised. While it does not make any difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a bureau if there is anything inside or not, a chair is best seen and fairly evaluated by a person sitting in it, because chair and sitter need each other. Thus the several areas of a chair have been given labels like the parts of the human parts: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the obvious job of the chair is to support your body, its credit is evaluated firstly for how suitably it does measure up to this practical use. Within the manufacture of the chair, the chair maker is bound under the static regulations and principal measurements. In these boundaries, however, the chair creator has extensive freedom.
The history of the chair is an epoch of several thousand years. There existed societies that had distinctive chair shapes, as expressive of the premier endeavour in the arenas of technique and aesthetics. From these such peoples, a 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 objects of masterful craft, are today a finding from tombs. The first one of them is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The classical Egyptian chair would have had four legs formed not unlike those of a chosen animal, a curved seat, and leading to a sloping back supported over vertical stretchers. In this way a stable triangular structure was obtained. There was to all appearances no noteworthy difference between the construction of Egyptian thrones and chairs for regular citizens. The only variation was in the kind of ornamentation, in the particulars of more costly inlays. The Egyptian folding stool in all probability was developed to be an easily carried seat for officers. As a camp stool that chair continued for much later periods of time. But the stool then also was made as the character of a ceremonial seat, its original job as a folding stool ignored or forgotten. This can from evidence be found, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, crafted in ebony with ivory inlay decoration and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They are in the shape of folding stools but can’t be folded because the seats were made of wood. The simplistic build of the folding stool, consisting of two frames that cycle on metal bolts and have a seat of leather or fabric fastened between them, was seen again at some time later in the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The best known of this form is the folding stool, crafted out of ashwood, seen at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The unique Greek chair, the klismos, is seen not in any ancient item still around but from a large amount of pictorial items. The archetype is the klismos seen on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial location just out of Athens (c. 410 BC). This klismos is a chair that had a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, only two of which were shown. These unusual legs were presumably manufactured in bent wood and were thus had huge pressure under the weight of the sitter. The joints securing the legs to the frame of the seat would have had to be therefore extremely solid and were visibly pointed out.
The Romans borrowed from the Greek chair; evidence of models of seated Romans offer designs of a thicker and which appear to be a kind of less delicately built klismos. Both designs, the light or heavy, were revived within the Classicist epoch. The klismos style is evidenced in French Empire furniture, in English Regency, and in some particular forms of marked uniqueness of Denmark and Sweden from 1800.
China
The progression of the chair in China can not be charted as far back as in Egypt and Greece. Since the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an unbroken collection of sketches and artworks has been kept, with images of the inside and exteriors of Chinese homes and the kinds of furniture. Kept also of the 16th century are a collection of chairs constructed of wood or lacquered wood, that show an amazing resemblance to styles of past chairs.
Just like in Egypt, there were two fundamental chair forms in China: a chair of four legs and a folding stool. This four-legged chair can be found both with or without arms but always having its square seat and straight stiles (standing side supports) to firm the back. In one style, it has been found, the stiles were slightly curved on top of the arms in order to sit correctly with the shape of the S-shaped back splat (the main upright of a chairback). Together, all three limbs were mortised in the yoke-like top rail. Though the innovation of this back splat exercised an influence on English chairs from the Queen Anne period, wooden items that would merely to a restricted limit embolden corner joints (and furthermore were loose to top that off) are a signature signatory to Chinese chairs. The four legs are set through the seat frame, which finishes over the rounded staves. All members are round in section or have rounded edges—acknowledging perhaps to the bamboo tradition. The seat is unpleasant to sit in and might have had a plaited bottom. These chairs required of the sitter to be stiff and upright; when too much weight is exerted on the back, the chair has a tendency to collapse. In patriarchal Chinese houses of this epoch armchairs presumably were reserved for elderly persons in the family, for they were esteemed greatly.
The Chinese folding stool is understood to have travelled to China from the West. It is akin so very much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a change in that the top rail is intricately joined to the two legs of the stool with a curved member, which is generally seen with metal mounts. From a Western viewpoint the resultant effect of both these furniture designs is stylized. The construction and decorative issues are combined in a style that is both naïve and refined. The patched up appearance is an upshot of the fact that the individual items do not look to have been held together with either glue or screws, but have been mortised with one another and locked into its place in the style of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain of the 17th century also had its name on the chair. Artworks show a kind of chair with a relatively crude wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, with two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing between, stitched to bring up a pattern of little pads. The front board and a related board at the back could be folded after loosening some little iron hooks. Thus the chair was a readily portable piece of furniture while traveling which, in the same time, gave the dignity of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered kind of chair is found in engravings of the 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. Though this kind of chair is also seen in countries in which Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won preference, it is not held that the form actually was born in The Netherlands. Typically, the legs of the chair are smooth, round in section, and of slim measurements; they are in some cases baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is obviously 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 these chairs lined up along a wall. The style asserts itself by its elegant proportions and delicate 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 is, as developed in Paris around 1750—spread through most of Europe and has been imitated or copied during the mid-20th century. The model owes such popularity to a combination of comfort and elegance. The seat conforms to the human body and permits a relaxed sitting position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Usually the seat and back are upholstered, and there are tiny upholstered pads covering the armrests. Smooth transitions made between seat frame, legs, and back cover all the joints, which are stable, constructed on craftsmanlike methodology even with the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations thereof are constructed from wood of fairly thick density; but all the members are deeply molded, all extra wood has been cut away, and more upmarket examples may be further embellished with intricately delicate and decorative carving. The wood might be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry may be used for all the upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; cane is occasionally used rather than upholstery.
English chairs in the 18th century were more open in style than the French. The French manner for stylistic uniformity, which lead from the royal circles in Paris and Versailles within most of France and found 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 reknowned 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 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, suggest that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
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