From each of the furniture needs, the chair may be the most imperative. Duration the majority of other forms ( save for the foothold ) are designed to prop objects, the chair supports your human arrangement. The term chair commitment be viewed here in the widest sense, from declare to realm to further items including the magister and sofa, which may be regarded as extended or connected chairs, and whose sense ( i. e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining ) is not distinctly labeled.
The social history of the chair is as curious as its history as a fertile craft. The chair is not tidily a essential rest and / or an pleasing piece of art; it can also be an thorn of social rating. From the historical royal courts qualified were social signifiers between being seated on a chair with arms, on a chair with a back but invisible arms, or having to treatment a make public. Since the recent century, a director ' s and manager ' s chair has been regarded as iconic of superior dignity, and in democratic power debate the speaker sits on a high - set platform.
As its furniture contour, the chair holds a treasure of different models. Proficient are chairs created to roll in to man ' s age and sincere abilities ( the sky-scraping chair, the wheelchair ) and to denote his level in society ( the executive chair, the kingdom ). Since historical times well-qualified were chairs used for birthing ( birth chairs ); from the 20th century, well-qualified have been chairs used for ending life ( the electric chair ). We have chairs with one, two, three, or four legs, chairs with or kiss goodbye arms, and chairs with or irrecoverable backs. We have chairs that can be folded, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Our lifestyle has characteristic separate chairs for automobiles and aircraft. Every one of these chair shapes has been perfected to conform to increasing human desires. Because of its close link with man, the chair lives to its full significance only when being utilised. Though it doesn ' t make a contrariety to one ' s appreciation of a cupboard or a dresser knickers whether efficient might be items inside or not, a chair is utterly pragmatic best and tested by a person utilising it, for chair and sitter duty one other. Consequently the several areas of a chair were named identical the names of a human shape: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the clear purpose of a chair is to timber our human body, its market price is judged at last by how whole it does measure up to this practical work. Within the design of a chair, the carpenter is limited with some static regulation and principal measurements. In these limits, however, the chair holiness has marvellous latitude.
The history of the chair extends over an era of several thousand second childhood. Practiced were societies that made lone chair forms, as empirical of the principal phenomenon in the industries of profit and design. In those societies, a 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 ascendancy of Louis XV and Louis XVI.
Egypt Two ancient Egyptian chair forms, both the structures of skilled scheme, are now a adjudicature from discoveries made in tombs. One of these two is a four - legged chair with a back, the other a folding give away. The typical Egyptian chair would have had four legs shaped akin to those of an ill-favored, a bowed seat, and leading to a sloping back supported with vertical stretchers. In this design a solid triangular design was obtained. Expert seemed to be no noteworthy differentiation between the creation of Egyptian thrones and chairs for ordinary peasantry. The royal variation lied in the intricacy of its decoration, in the choice of pricier inlays. The Egyptian folding broadcast most casual was manufactured as an easily stored seat for officers. As a campy confess this type persisted during much subsequent times. But the inform then was created for the purpose of a ceremonial seat, its technical job as a folding stool neglected or forgotten. This can already be found, from as early as 1366 - 57 BC in two stools, crafted in ebony with ivory inlay ornamentation and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They are made in the construction of folding stools but can not be folded because the seats were created of wood. The simplistic build of the folding stool, being of two frames that turn on metal bolts and support a seat of leather or fabric secured between them, can be seen some time later in the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most recognisable of those is the folding stool, made from ashwood, which can now be seen at Guldhj ( National Museum in Copenhagen ).
Greece and Rome The iconic Greek chair, the klismos, is known not as any ancient fossil still extant but in a trove of pictorial evidence. The better recognised is the klismos posited on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial location near Athens ( c. 410 BC ). This is a chair with a backward - sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of these legs would be shown. These strange legs were presumably executed out of bent wood and were in that case put under a large amount of pressure from the weight of the sitter. The joints attaching the legs to the frame of the seat had to be therefore very durable and were visibly denoted.
The Romans embued the Greek designs; some statues of seated Romans offer designs of a heavier and in appearance slightly crudely designed klismos. Both types, the light and heavy, were popularised within the Classicist era. The klismos chair is evidenced in French Empire design, in English Regency, and in some kinds of considerable iconicism within Denmark and Sweden circa 1800.
China The past of the chair in China is not able to be tracked as long as that of Egypt and Greece. From the time of the Tang dynasty ( AD 618 - 907 ) an unscathed folio of sketches and artworks had been kept safe, with images of the interiors and exterior of Chinese households and their furniture. Preserved also of the 16th century are a collection of chairs of wood or lacquered wood, that hold an astonishing resemblance to representations of previous chairs.
Just as in Egypt, there were two major chair forms in China: a chair having four legs and a folding stool. This four - legged chair was seen both with or without arms though always with its square seat and straight stiles ( standing side supports ) to firm the back. In one form, it has been seen, the stiles had been marginally curved above the arms for the purpose of suit the angle of the S - shaped back splat ( the basic upright of the chairback ). Each of the three areas are mortised on the yoke - like top rail. Despite that the design of the Chinese back splat had a foundation for English chairs of the Queen Anne period, wooden sections that merely to a restricted limit embolden corner joints ( and furthermore are loose in the bargain ) represent an element particular to Chinese chairs. The four legs sit through the seat frame, which closes around the rounded staves. Every member is round in section or possesses rounded edges - referable as may be to the bamboo tradition. The seat is not comfortable and may have a plaited texture. These chairs needed the sitter to remain stiff and upright; when too much weight is pushed on the back, the chair has a tendency to topple. In patriarchal Chinese households of this era armchairs most likely were reserved only for senior persons, for they were given great esteem.
The Chinese folding stool is believed to have come to China from the West. It is not dissimilar much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a difference in that the top rail is prettily joined to the two legs of the stool with a curved member, which is often provided with metal mounts. From a Western point of view the overall effect of both these furniture forms is stylized. The constructive and decorative parts are combined in a way that is both nave and refined. The patched up appearance is an upshot of the way that the individual parts do not appear to have been fixed together with either glue or screws, but are mortised onto one another and held in place in the style of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century The Golden Age of Spain of the 17th century also left its signature on the chair. Paintings project a kind 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 small pads. The front board and a corresponding board from the back could be folded after unscrewing some little iron hooks. Thus the chair was a portable piece of furniture when traveling which, during the same era, granted the dignity of a four - legged, high - backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century A low, square, upholstered style of chair is seen 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 is also found in countries where Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won acclaim, it is not determined that the form actually originated in The Netherlands. Usually, the legs of the chair will be smooth, round in section, and of thin measurements; they are sometimes baluster - shaped ( vase - shaped ) or twisted. It is obviously a bourgeois piece of furniture and was made in considerable amounts, as can be seen from one of Abraham Bosse ' s engravings, in which an entire row of such chairs lined up by a wall. The design asserts itself with its elegant proportions and delicate upholstery in gilt leather or fabric framed with fringes.
France and England: 17th and 18th centuries The French Rococo chair in its most mature form - that was, to say, as developed in Paris around 1750 - spread through most of Europe and was imitated or copied during the mid - 20th century. The model owes the popularity to a combination of relaxation and elegance. The seat adheres to the human body and permits 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 over the armrests. Smooth transitions are made between seat frame, legs, and back conceal all the joints, which are constructed on craftsmanlike methodology despite the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of those are constructed from wood of relatively thick dimensions; but all the members are deeply molded, all extra wood has been taken away, and more upmarket chairs can be further embellished with special delicate and decorative engraving. The wood can 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 as an alternative to upholstery.
English chairs of the 18th century were more differentiated in form than the French. The French taste for stylistic uniformity, which lead from the highest circles in Paris and Versailles within 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 reknowned 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 Eugne Gaillard in France, Henry van de Velde in Belgium, Josef Hoffman in Austria, Antonio Gaud 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 Mtro.
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, hint that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
