The History of the Chair
Out of each of the furniture items, the chair may be primary. While most of the other pieces (except the bed) are designed to support objects, the chair supports your human form. The term chair should be used here in the most common sense, from stool to throne to further pieces such as a bench and sofa, which may be regarded as extended or connected chairs, and whose character (i.e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining) is not obviously labeled.
The social history of the chair is as intriguing as its history as a creative art. The chair is not merely a physical support and/or aesthetic creation; it can also be a symbol of social status. In the past royal courts there were plain signifiers between having a chair with arms, on a chair with a back but without arms, or worse having to use a stool. Since the 20th century, the director’s and manager’s chair has developed an indicator of superior status, and even in democratic governments the speaker sits on a higher floor.
In its furniture construction, the chair can be used for a variety of different models. There are chairs manufactured to suit man’s age and physical abilities (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to denote his standing in society (the executive chair, the throne). During past days there were chairs used for birthing (birth chairs); since the 20th century, there have been chairs to die in (the electric chair). We design chairs with one, two, three, and/or four legs, chairs with or without arms, and chairs with or without backs. We can make chairs that can be folded, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Modern day living has demanded unique chairs in automobiles and aircraft. All of these chair types has perfected to fit to different human requirements. Due to its close link with man, the chair exists to its full significance only when in use. Whereas it doesn’t make any difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a chest of drawers whether there are things inside or not, a chair is really seen and fairly tested with a person sitting in it, because chair and sitter need the other. Thus the various elements of a chair have been named according to the parts of the human shape: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the original job of the chair is to support a body, its value is valued firstly from how completely it fulfills this practical function. Within the manufacture of the chair, the carpenter is restricted for particular static laws and principal measurements. Through these restrictions, however, the chair designer has extensive freedom.
The history of the chair covered an epoch of several thousand years. There is evidence of civilizations that created individual chair types, seen of the topmost endeavour in the spheres of technique and art. In such civilisations, special 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 careful design, are today a finding from tomb findings. The first one of them is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The original Egyptian chair has four legs structured not unlike those of a designated animal, a curved seat, and leading to a sloping back supported from vertical stretchers. In this design a stable triangular structure was created. There seems to be no particular difference from the construction of Egyptian thrones and chairs for common populace. The simple variation was in the type of ornamentation, in the choice of costly inlays. The Egyptian folding stool probably was manufactured as an easily portable seat for army officers. As a camp stool that form stayed around til much later points. But the stool also then was designed as the task of a ceremonial seat, its original function as a folding stool being forgotten. This can today be observed, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, executed in ebony with ivory inlay decoration and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They are in the form of folding stools but aren’t able to be folded as the seats are created of wood. The simplistic manufacture of the folding stool, composed of two frames that cycle on metal bolts and hold a seat of leather or fabric fastened between them, reappeared some time later in the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most recognisable of this type is the folding stool, made of ashwood, which is now found at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The significant Greek chair, the klismos, is seen not from any ancient object still around but in a large amount of pictorial evidence. The archetype is the klismos placed on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial area near 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 would be shown. These strange legs were thought to be manufactured of bent wood and were likely to have been put under great pressure with the weight of the sitter. The joints joining the legs to the frame of the seat would have been therefore very durable and were particularly pointed out.
The Romans emulated the Greek designs; designs of casts of seated Romans offer chairs of a thicker and are a somewhat less intricately built klismos. Both styles, light and heavy, were brought back during the Classicist period. The klismos influence can be evidenced in French Empire furniture, in English Regency, and in some special brands of marked originality within Denmark and Sweden during 1800.
China
The past of the chair in China can not be followed as long as the history of chairs in Egypt and Greece. Since the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an unbroken serial of sketches and paintings has been kept, showing the interiors and outer parts of Chinese buildings and the designs of furniture. Also preserved since the 16th century are a collection of chairs made of wood or lacquered wood, that hold an interesting resemblance to styles of ancient chairs.
Like in Egypt, two iconic chair forms existed in China: a chair of four legs and a folding stool. This chair was constructed both with and without arms although always having the square seat and straight stiles (upright side supports) to give support to the back. In one design, though, the stiles could be slightly curved on top of the arms to suit the shape of the S-shaped back splat (the basic upright of a back). The three limbs are mortised on the yoke-like top rail. While the design of the Chinese back splat then had a foundation for English chairs of the Queen Anne period, wooden sections that only to a particular extent stabilise corner joints (and are loose additionally) are a signature signatory to Chinese chairs. The four legs pass through the seat frame, which stops upon the rounded staves. Every member is round in section or is given rounded edges—a left over maybe to the bamboo tradition. The seat is uncomfortable and may have a plaited texture. These chairs required of the sitter to remain stiff and upright; if too much pressure is pushed on the back, the chair has a habit of falling over. In patriarchal Chinese households of this era armchairs likely were kept for older persons in the family, for they were given great esteem.
The Chinese folding stool is believed to have been brought to China from the West. It does not vary very much from the Egyptian and Scandinavian folding stools, but it has a variation in that the top rail is delicately held to the two legs of the stool with a curved member, which is often possessing metal mounts. From a Western understanding the resultant effect of both these furniture designs is stylized. The structure and aesthetic parts are combined in a manner that is simultaneously naïve and refined. The pieced-together appearance is an upshot of the manner that the individual members do not appear to have been joined together with either glue or screws, but have been mortised with one another and locked into position in the style of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain of the 17th century also had its signature on the chair. Works of art show a design of chair with a relatively unrefined wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, possessing two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing in between the layers, stitched to show up a pattern of tiny pads. The front board and a similar board at the back could be folded after loosening some little iron hooks. In this way the chair was an easily portable piece of furniture when traveling which, at the same era, granted the status of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered style of chair can be found in engravings of interiors of rich Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, and also in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. Though this type of chair might also be made in countries in which Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won preference, it is not decided that the design actually began in The Netherlands. Usually, the legs of the chair are smooth, round in section, and of slim dimensions; they are sometimes baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is patently a bourgeois piece of furniture and was produced in impressive numbers, as can be surmised from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which there is an entire row of such chairs lined up by a wall. The design asserts itself by virtue of its elegant proportions and delicate upholstery in gilt leather or fabric bordered with fringes.
France and England: 17th and 18th centuries
The French Rococo chair in its most mature form—that is, as progressed in Paris around 1750—disseminated through most of Europe and has been imitated or copied into the mid-20th century. The chair owes its popularity to a combination of comfort and elegance. The seat suits 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 constructed solidly on craftsmanlike principles in spite of the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of them use wood of quite thick measurements; but each member is deeply molded, all superfluous wood has been removed, and finer chairs may be further embellished with highly delicate and decorative engravings. The wood can be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry is generally used for all of the 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 touch for stylistic uniformity, which lead from the premier circles in Paris and Versailles within most of France and became the preference in large 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
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 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, hint that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
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