Of all furniture forms, the chair may be the most imperative. While most other pieces (apart from the bed) are created to support objects, the chair supports a human form. The term chair is looked upon here in the widest sense, from stool to throne to complex forms such as a bench and sofa, which may be viewed as extended or connected chairs, and whose character (i.e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining) is not clearly labeled.

The social history of the chair is as exciting as its history as a creative craft. The chair is not simply a physical support and/or an aesthetic item; it was historically a signifier of social status. Within the Medieval royal courts there were important signifiers between being seated on a chair with arms, or a chair with a back but without arms, or worse having to squat on a stool. From the past century, the director’s or manager’s chair has been an indicator of superior status, like in democratic government debate the speaker sits on an elevated platform.

In its furniture purpose, the chair can be utilised for a number of various purposes. There are chairs designed to match man’s age and physical abilities (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to connotate his standing in society (the executive chair, the throne). During past times there were chairs used for birth (birth chairs); during the 20th century, there have been chairs used for ending life (the electric chair). We have 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 living has demanded particular chairs in automobiles and aircraft. Each and every one of these chair kinds has been changed to conform to growing human desires. Because of its significant association with man, the chair appears to its full importance only when used. While it does not make any difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a chest of drawers if there is anything inside or not, a chair is understood best and regarded best by a person sitting in it, because chair and sitter suit the other. Thus the several elements of a chair are given labels according to the names of our human shape: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.

Because the first role of your chair is to support our human body, its worth is evaluated generally by how fully it measures up to this practical purpose. Within the construction of a chair, the chair maker is restricted under particular static laws and principal measurements. Under these limits, however, the chair designer has large freedom.

The history of the chair extends over an era of several thousand years. There were peoples that had made unique chair shapes, seen of the principal task in the areas of technique and aesthetics. Within these peoples, special note needs to 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 structures of careful make, are known from findings made in tombs. The first of the two is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The original Egyptian chair would have four legs formed not unlike those of a designated animal, a curved seat, with a sloping back supported above vertical stretchers. From this design a strong triangular structure was obtained. There was in our knowledge no notable variation from the construction of Egyptian thrones and chairs for regular citizens. The real change lies in the decorative ornamentation, in the evidence of more valuable inlays. The Egyptian folding stool in all probability was made to be an easily packed seat for soldiers. As a camp stool the stool persevered for much later periods. But the stool also then existed in the use of a ceremonial seat, its technical job as a folding stool being forgotten. This can from today be observed, 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 are made in the form of folding stools but can not be folded because the seats are worked out of wood. The simple structure of the folding stool, being of two frames that cycle on metal bolts and hold a seat of leather or fabric held between them, was then seen at some time later in the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The better known of this form is the folding stool, crafted from ashwood, which can now be found at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).

Greece and Rome
The archetypal Greek chair, the klismos, is seen not from any ancient fossil still around but in a variety of pictorial objects. The best recognised is the klismos drawn on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial area outside Athens (c. 410 BC). This klismos is a chair with a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of which could be seen. These odd legs were understood to be crafted of bent wood and were therefore put under extreme pressure with the weight of the sitter. The joints securing the legs to the frame of the seat are therefore very durable and were plainly drawn.

The Romans adopted the Greek design; a number of statues of seated Romans are chairs of a denser and apparently slightly less delicately crafted klismos. Both designs, the light and heavy, were popularised as part of the Classicist epoch. The klismos design is seen in French Empire design, in English Regency, and in some brands of marked iconicism around Denmark and Sweden circa 1800.

China
The history of the chair in China is not able to be traced as well as that of Egypt and Greece. From the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) a full series of sketches and artworks was kept, displaying the inside and outside of Chinese households and their furniture. Also preserved since the 16th century are some chairs made of wood or lacquered wood, that bear an amazing similarity to representations of past chairs.

Just like in Egypt, two fundamental chair forms existed in China: a chair of four legs and a folding stool. This four-legged chair has been seen both with or without arms however always with a square seat and straight stiles (vertical side supports) to firm the back. In one image, it has been seen, the stiles are slightly curved by the arms to conform to the shape of the S-shaped back splat (the basic upright of a chairback). Together, the three limbs had been mortised into the yoke-like top rail. Although the innovation of the back splat exercised an influence on English chairs during the Queen Anne period, wooden members that would only to a particular extent reinforce corner joints (and are loose in the result) represent a feature signatory to Chinese chairs. The four legs sit through the seat frame, which finishes upon the rounded staves. Every member is round in section or possesses rounded edges—acknowledging perhaps to the bamboo tradition. The seat is unpleasant to sit in and occasionally had a plaited texture. These chairs demanded of the sitter to remain stiff and upright; if too much weight is placed on the back, the chair has a habit of collapsing. In patriarchal Chinese houses of this epoch armchairs presumably were only for elderly persons, for they were greatly respected.

The Chinese folding stool is understood to have taken to China from the West. It does not differ that much from the Egyptian and Scandinavian folding stools, but it has a difference in that the top rail is delicately held to the two legs of the stool by means of a curved member, which is usually possessing metal mounts. From a Western point of view the overall effect of both furniture designs is stylized. The constructive and decorative issues are combined in a way that is simultaneously naïve and refined. The patchwork appearance is an outcome of the way that the individual parts do not appear to have been fixed together by either glue or screws, but had been mortised into one another and fixed in position in the manner of a Chinese puzzle.

Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain of the 17th century also had its mark on the chair. Works of art show a style of chair with a relatively brusque wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, possessing two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing between, stitched to show up a pattern of little pads. The front board and a related board from the back could be folded after loosening some small iron hooks. Thus the chair was an easily portable piece of furniture while traveling which, at the same time, granted the dignity of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.

The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered type of chair is displayed in engravings of the inside of affluent Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, and in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. Though this kind of chair might also be made in countries where Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won favour, it is not determined that the style actually started in The Netherlands. Typically, the legs of the chair are smooth, round in section, and of thin measurements; they are occasionally baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is unquestionably a bourgeois piece of furniture and was made in considerable numbers, as evidenced from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which there is a whole row of this kind of chairs lined up along a wall. The form asserts itself with its shapely 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 style—that was, to say, as developed in Paris around 1750—spread through most of Europe and has been imitated or copied in the mid-20th century. The model owes its popularity to a combination of leisure and charm. The seat adheres to the human body and grants a relaxed sitting position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Typically the seat and back are upholstered, and there are small upholstered pads covering the armrests. Smooth transitions achieved between seat frame, legs, and back cover all the joints, which are constructed on craftsmanlike methods in spite of the absence of stretchers between the legs.

French Rococo chairs and imitations of those have wood of quite thick measurements; but all the members are deeply molded, all extraneous wood has been cut away, and more upmarket chairs may be further embellished with special delicate and decorative carving. The wood might be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry should be used for the upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; canework is sometimes used as an alternative to upholstery.

English chairs of the 18th century were more varied in form than the French. The French taste for stylistic uniformity, which came from the highest circles in Paris and Versailles over most of France and became the favourite 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 popularised 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.

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