The History of the Chair
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From all the furniture needs, the chair could be the paramount one. While the majority of other objects (save the bed) are devised to support objects, the chair supports our human form. The term chair is intended to be looked upon here in the most general sense, from stool to throne to further makes including 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 clearly distinuishable.
The social history of the chair is as intriguing as its history as a creative craft. The chair is not only a physical support and aesthetic item; it was historically an indicator of social ranking. From the past royal courts there were important signifiers between being seated on a chair with arms, or a chair with a back but without arms, and having to use a stool. In the 20th century, the director’s and manager’s chair has been an indicator of superior status, like in democratic parliaments the speaker sits on a raised platform.
In a furniture purpose, the chair can be utilised for a wealth of various makes. There are chairs structured to fit man’s age and physical capabilities (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to connotate his position in society (the executive chair, the throne). Since the past there were chairs to be born in (birth chairs); during the 20th century, there have been chairs to die in (the electric chair). We make 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 up, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Modern day living has derived special chairs in automobiles and aircraft. All these chair types has changed to match to growing human desires. For its particular connection with man, the chair lives to its full advantage only when in use. Whereas it doesn’t make any difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a chest of drawers if there are things inside or not, a chair is understood best and fairly judged with a person sitting in it, because chair and sitter require each other. Thus the various elements of the chair were given names corresponding to the parts of our human body: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the simple role of a chair is to support our human body, its credit is evaluated principally for how well it does measure up to this practical function. In the manufacture of the chair, the chair maker is limited under certain static regulation and principal measurements. Inside these restrictions, however, the chair maker has marvellous freedom.
The history of the chair lasted an era of several thousand years. There are societies that created iconic chair types, as seen of the principal task in the areas of craft and aesthetics. Out of such peoples, a mention 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 lifetimes of Louis XV and Louis XVI.
Egypt
Two ancient Egyptian chair forms, both the result of masterful design, were a finding from tombs. First of these two is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The typical Egyptian chair had four legs structured similar to those of a chosen animal, a curved seat, and with a sloping back supported by vertical stretchers. From this design a stable triangular construction was made. There was from our understanding no marked change from the creation of Egyptian thrones and chairs for typical citizens. The simple change existed in the intricacy of its ornamentation, in the particulars of more costly inlays. The Egyptian folding stool most probably was designed to be an easily stored seat for soldiers. As a camp stool the type existed til much later periods of time. But the stool then took on the role of a ceremonial seat, its technical role as a folding stool ignored or forgotten. This can already be noted, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, crafted in ebony with ivory inlay work and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They were made in the structure of folding stools but can not be folded as the seats were made with wood. The simple manufacture of the folding stool, being of two frames that rotate on metal bolts and hold a seat of leather or fabric secured between them, then came again some time later during the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The better known of these is the folding stool, from ashwood, which can now be seen at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The significant Greek chair, the klismos, is recognised not from any ancient item still extant but seen in a trove of pictorial material. The significant kind is the klismos drawn on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial area outside Athens (c. 410 BC). This is a chair that had a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, only two of these legs could be shown. These unusual legs were presumed to have been manufactured of bent wood and were likely to have been had great pressure under the weight of the sitter. The joints fastening the legs to the frame of the seat were therefore very strong and were visibly denoted.
The Romans emulated the Greek chair; designs of casts of seated Romans show evidence of a heavier and which appear to be a rather crudely crafted klismos. Both designs, the light or heavy, were brought back in the Classicist period. The klismos influence is known in French Empire styles, in English Regency, and in some particular kinds of profound originality within Denmark and Sweden during 1800.
China
The progression of the chair in China is not able to be traced as well as the progression of the chairs in Egypt and Greece. Since the time of the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an undamaged folio of drawings and works of art had been preserved, showing the inside and outer parts of Chinese homes and the furniture. Also kept of the 16th century are a trove of chairs made from wood or lacquered wood, that hold an amazing familiarity to representations of older chairs.
As was the case in Egypt, two chair designs dominated in China: a chair with four legs and a folding stool. That four-legged chair has been seen both with and without arms though always having the square seat and straight stiles (straight side supports) to hold up the back. In one type, however, the stiles were delicately curved on top of the arms so as to conform correctly to the form of the S-shaped back splat (the central upright of a back). The three sections were mortised into the yoke-like top rail. Though the innovation of a back splat exercised an inspiration for English chairs in the Queen Anne period, wooden members that merely to a particular extent embolden corner joints (and furthermore are loose as a result) indicate a feature signatory to Chinese chairs. The four legs pass through the seat frame, which finishes over the rounded staves. Every member is round in section or possesses rounded edges—a left over maybe to the bamboo tradition. The seat is not comfortable and occasionally had a plaited bottom. These chairs required of the sitter to be stiff and upright; for when too much weight is exerted on the back, the chair has a habit of collapsing. In patriarchal Chinese homes of this period armchairs most likely were only for elderly individuals in the family, for they were given great respect.
The Chinese folding stool is understood to have come to China from the West. It does not differ much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a dissimilarity in that the top rail is elegantly fixed to the two legs of the stool by a curved member, which is usually provided with metal mounts. From a Western understanding the ultimate effect of these furniture styles is stylized. The structure and aesthetic issues are combined in a style that is all at once both naïve and refined. The patchwork appearance is an upshot of the way that the individual parts do not appear to have been joined together by means of either glue or screws, but had been mortised into one another and fixed in its place in the manner of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain in the 17th century also put its mark on the chair. Works of art display a kind of chair with a relatively crude wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, with two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing in the layers, stitched to produce a pattern of little pads. The front board and a corresponding board from the back could be folded after loosening some small iron hooks. Therefore the chair was a portable piece of furniture in traveling which, at the same time, possessed the dignity of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered kind of chair is seen in engravings of the interior 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 style of chair can also be found in countries in which Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won preference, it is not believed that the design actually began in The Netherlands. Typically, the legs of the chair will be smooth, round in section, and of thin dimensions; they are occasionally baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is clearly a bourgeois piece of furniture and was made in large numbers, as can be surmised from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which a whole row of this kind of chairs lined up against a wall. The design asserts itself with its shapely 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 of forms—that is, as brought out in Paris around 1750—spread through most of Europe and was imitated or copied in the mid-20th century. The design owes its popularity to a combination of relaxation and delicacy. The seat adheres to the human body and permits a relaxed seated position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Usually the seat and back are upholstered, and there are small upholstered pads on the armrests. Smooth transitions are achieved between seat frame, legs, and back disguise all the joints, which are strongly constructed on craftsmanlike practices even with the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations thereof are constructed from wood of quite thick density; but all the members are deeply molded, all extra wood has been removed, and finer examples can be further embellished with very delicate and decorative engraving. The wood could 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 differentiated in form than the French. The French preference for stylistic uniformity, which disseminated from the most distinguished circles in Paris and Versailles through 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 reknowned and was widely distributed throughout the world.
Late 18th to 20th century
Within 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, indicate that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
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