The History of the Chair
June 26th, 2010
Out of each of the furniture objects, the chair may be primary. While most other pieces (except the bed) are devised to support objects, the chair supports a human form. The term chair is meant to be said here in the most open sense, from stool to throne to developed pieces for example the bench and sofa, which can be considered as extended or connected chairs, and whose character (i.e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining) is not clearly distinuishable.
The social history of the chair is as intriguing as its history as an art and craft. The chair is not merely a physical support or aesthetic object; it was historically symbolic of social rank. Within the old royal courts there were significant distinctions between having a chair with arms, or a chair with a back but no arms, or having to sit on a stool. From the last century, the director’s and/or manager’s chair has been an indicator of superior position, and in democratic parliaments the speaker sits on a higher platform.
As its furniture purpose, the chair is used for a number of different makes. There are chairs created to attend to man’s age and physical condition (the high chair, the wheelchair) and for his status in society (the executive chair, the throne). From historical times there were chairs used for birth (birth chairs); during the 20th century, there have been chairs for ending life (the electric chair). We design chairs with one, two, three, or four legs, chairs with or without arms, and chairs with or without backs. We can have chairs that can be folded for easy storage, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Contemporary lifestyle has derived special chairs for automobiles and aircraft. Each and every one of these chair types has changed to conform to evolving human needs. Because of its close connection with man, the chair lives to its full advantage only when used. Although it does not make any difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a bureau whether there might be things inside or not, a chair is seen best and fairly tested by a person sitting in it, for chair and sitter complement one another. Thus the various limbs of a chair have been named likened to the parts of the human form: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the elemental role of a chair is to support our body, its value is tested basically on how completely it does measure up to this practical function. In the structure of the chair, the maker is restricted under the static laws and principal measurements. Inside these restrictions, however, the chair designer has large freedom.
The history of the chair was an epoch of several thousand years. There is evidence of civilizations that had iconic chair shapes, expressions of the premier object in the spheres of handling and art. Within these cultures, individual note can 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 items of careful design, were known from discoveries made in tombs. One of these is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The typical Egyptian chair would have had four legs structured as akin to those of a designated animal, a curved seat, and with a sloping back supported with vertical stretchers. From this design a solid triangular structure was crafted. There was in our view no significant variation between the structure of Egyptian thrones and chairs for ordinary populace. The general variation lied in the brand of ornamentation, in the choice of expensive inlays. The Egyptian folding stool in all likelihood was developed as an easily portable seat for army. As a camp stool the type stayed around until much later periods. But the stool also was designed for the task of a ceremonial seat, its mechanical task as a folding stool neglected or forgotten. This can already 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 are worked of wood. The easy make of the folding stool, consisting of two frames that rotate on metal bolts and bear a seat of leather or fabric held between them, was then seen some time later in the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most recognised of these is the folding stool, of ashwood, now found at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The unique Greek chair, the klismos, is found not with any ancient specimen still extant but found in a variety of pictorial items. The best recognised is the klismos seen on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial ground outside Athens (c. 410 BC). The klismos is a chair that had a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, only two of them are visible. These unique legs were presumed to be crafted out of bent wood and were therefore had to bear great pressure with the weight of the sitter. The joints joining the legs to the frame of the seat had to be therefore super stable and were plainly indicated.
The Romans adopted the Greek style; evidence of casts of seated Romans offer examples of a heavier and apparently kind of more crudely crafted klismos. Both features, light and heavy, were popularised in the Classicist era. The klismos chair can be evidenced in French Empire chairs, in English Regency, and in special types of considerable individuality around Denmark and Sweden circa 1800.
China
The progression of the chair in China is not able to be traced as well as the ancestry of chairs in Egypt and Greece. Since the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an unscathed folio of sketches and artworks has been kept, with images of the insides and outer parts of Chinese buildings and the furniture. Also preserved since the 16th century are some chairs made from wood or lacquered wood, that hold an astonishing familiarity to pictures of ancient chairs.
Just the same as in Egypt, there existed two fundamental chair designs in China: a chair having four legs and a folding stool. The four-legged chair is found both with and without arms though never without its square seat and straight stiles (straight side supports) to firm the back. In one type, it has been seen, the stiles could be slightly curved over the arms so as to conform correctly to the angle of the S-shaped back splat (the main upright of a chairback). The three parts were mortised into the yoke-like top rail. Although the innovation of a back splat had an inspiration for English chairs in the Queen Anne period, wooden members that would only to a particular capability support corner joints (and were loose as a result) are a design signatory to Chinese chairs. The four legs sit through the seat frame, which finishes about the rounded staves. Members are round in section or have rounded edges—references maybe to the bamboo tradition. The seat is unpleasant to sit in and may have a plaited form. These chairs required the sitter to stay stiff and upright; if too much pressure is forced on the back, the chair has a tendency to topple over. In patriarchal Chinese houses of this period armchairs likely were kept only for older persons in the family, for they were esteemed greatly.
The Chinese folding stool is presumed to have been brought to China from the West. It does not vary so very much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a dissimilarity in that the top rail is intricately affixed to the two legs of the stool by means of a curved member, which is more often than not seen with metal mounts. From a Western perspective the resultant effect of both furniture designs is stylized. The construction and decorative issues are combined in a style that is at the same time naïve and refined. The patched up appearance is an upshot of the manner that the individual parts do not seem to have been put together by use of either glue or screws, but had been mortised onto one another and locked into position in the manner of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain of the 17th century also put its mark on the chair. Paintings display a kind of chair with a relatively unrefined wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, consisting of two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing in between the layers, stitched to bring up a pattern of little pads. The front board and a similar board in the back could be folded after unscrewing some small iron hooks. Therefore the chair was a portable piece of furniture for traveling which, during the same time, had the dignity of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered kind of chair can be seen 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. While this type of chair might also be seen in countries where Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won critical acclaim, it is not believed that the style actually was instigated 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 unquestionably a bourgeois piece of furniture and was manufactured in considerable amounts, as indicated from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which there is an entire row of those chairs lined up along a wall. The form asserts itself by virtue of its elegant proportions and fine upholstery in gilt leather or fabric framed 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—spread over most of Europe and has been imitated or copied into the mid-20th century. The style owes this popularity to a combination of relaxation and charm. 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 on the armrests. Smooth transitions are made between seat frame, legs, and back cover all the joints, which are solidly constructed on craftsmanlike practices even with the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of those have wood of rather thick dimensions; but all the members are deeply molded, all superfluous wood has been removed, and finer designs may be further embellished with very delicate and decorative woodwork. The wood might be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry may be used for all of the upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; canework is occasionally 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 aristocratic circles in Paris and Versailles within 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 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.
For a great deal on office furniture in Brisbane contact Fast Office Furniture today and check our specials.
Sphere: Related ContentCategories: General Travel Information | Tags: office cahirs, office furniture
