Out of all furniture needs, the chair might be the imperative one. While most of the other pieces (except the bed) are meant to support objects, the chair supports our human form. The term chair should be looked upon here in the most open sense, from stool to throne to derivative pieces including the bench and sofa, which might be viewed as extended or connected chairs, and whose character (i.e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining) is not overtly distinuishable.
The social history of the chair is as exciting as its history as a creative art. The chair is not just a physical support and aesthetic item; it historically was a signifier of social standing. From the Medieval royal courts there were plain connotations between possessing a chair with arms, on a chair with a back but no arms, or having to utilise a stool. From the recent century, a director’s and/or manager’s chair has risen a signifier of superior dignity, as well as in democratic governments the speaker sits on a high-set floor.
In a furniture form, the chair holds a number of different models. There are chairs created to suit man’s age and physical form (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to connotate his status in society (the executive chair, the throne). During past days there were chairs to be born in (birth chairs); during the 20th century, there have been chairs to die in (the electric chair). We have chairs with one, two, three, or four legs, chairs with or without arms, and chairs with or without backs. There are chairs that can be folded and put away, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Modern day living has designated particular chairs in automobiles and aircraft. All of these chair shapes has perfected to fit to evolving human desires. Because of its close relationship with man, the chair lives to its full importance only when being used. Whereas it does not make any difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a dresser drawers whether there are items inside or not, a chair is seen best and fairly tested by a person sitting on it, because chair and sitter need each other. Thus the different areas of the chair have been given labels likened to the parts of the human body: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the primary function of the chair is to support a human body, its credit is tested principally for how suitably it fulfills this practical use. In the construction of a chair, the carpenter is limited under the static regulation and principal measurements. In these limits, however, the chair builder has awesome freedom.
The history of the chair covered a period of several thousand years. There is evidence of peoples that had made iconic chair types, as seen of the topmost work in the arenas of craft and design. Among those civilisations, 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 structures of masterful scheme, were found from tomb findings. One of these is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The iconic Egyptian chair had four legs structured not unlike those of a chosen animal, a curved seat, and a sloping back supported from vertical stretchers. From this design a solid triangular design was crafted. There appears to be no notable differentiation in the design of Egyptian thrones and chairs for regular non-royals. The general change lied in the intricacy of its ornamentation, in the choice of pricier inlays. The Egyptian folding stool likely was designed as an easily carried seat for army officers. As a camp stool this stool existed until much later points. But the stool also then was created for the use of a ceremonial seat, its technical task as a folding stool being forgotten. This can already be found, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, formed in ebony with ivory inlay decoration and gold mounts, from the tomb of Tutankhamen. They were in the structure of folding stools but can’t be folded as the seats are created from wood. The simplistic structure of the folding stool, made of two frames that cycle on metal bolts and have a seat of leather or fabric fastened between them, reappeared but some time later as the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The better recognised of this type is the folding stool, from ashwood, found at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The unique Greek chair, the klismos, is recognised not from any ancient specimen still extant but found in a wealth of pictorial objects. The most recognisable is the klismos posited on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial ground just out of Athens (c. 410 BC). This is a chair that had a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of which can be displayed. These curved legs were presumed to have been executed from bent wood and were therefore subjected to huge pressure under the weight of the sitter. The joints securing the legs to the frame of the seat were therefore very stable and were plainly signified.
The Romans embued the Greek chair; designs of casts of seated Romans offer chairs of a thicker and apparently somewhat more crudely crafted klismos. Both features, light and heavy, were seen again in the Classicist time. The klismos chair is found in French Empire styles, in English Regency, and in some brands of marked iconicism within Denmark and Sweden from 1800.
China
The ancestry of the chair in China isn’t able to be followed as far as the ancestry of chairs in Egypt and Greece. Since the time of the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an unscathed folio of drawings and works of art had been protected, displaying the inside and exterior of Chinese houses and the kinds of furniture. Also kept since the 16th century are a collection of chairs constructed of wood or lacquered wood, that hold an interesting likeness to pictures of ancient chairs.
Just as in Egypt, there existed two particular chair forms in China: a chair of four legs and a folding stool. This chair is constructed both with and without arms but always having the square seat and straight stiles (vertical side supports) to support the back. In one kind, though, the stiles are marginally curved by the arms in order to conform to the structure of the S-shaped back splat (the basic upright of its chairback). All three parts were mortised onto the yoke-like top rail. Though the innovation of a back splat then had an inspiration for English chairs from the Queen Anne period, wooden items that merely to a restricted limit reinforce corner joints (and then are loose in the result) indicate a feature solely to Chinese chairs. The four legs pass through the seat frame, which stops over the rounded staves. All members are round in section or have rounded edges—a left over perchance to the bamboo tradition. The seat is uncomfortable and may have a plaited bottom. These chairs required the sitter to remain stiff and upright; when too much pressure is pushed on the back, the chair has a way of falling over. In patriarchal Chinese households of this era armchairs presumably were only for older family members, for they were given great esteem.
The Chinese folding stool is presumed to have been brought to China from the West. It does not vary that much from the Egyptian or Scandinavian folding stools, but it has a dissimilarity in that the top rail is delicately 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 understanding the overall effect of both of these furniture styles is stylized. The constructive and aesthetic parts are combined in a style that is all at once naïve and refined. The patchwork appearance is a result of the fact that the individual items do not seem to have been held together by use of either glue or screws, but have been mortised on one another and locked into its place in the manner of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain of the 17th century also left its name on the chair. Works of art show a design of chair with a relatively unrefined wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, consisting of two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing in the layers, stitched to bring 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. In this way the chair was an easily portable piece of furniture while traveling which, in the same period, possessed 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 the interior of rich Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, and also in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. Although this type of chair may also be found in countries in which Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won critical acclaim, it is not held that the style actually originated in The Netherlands. Generally, the legs of the chair will be smooth, round in section, and of slender dimensions; they are in some cases baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is clearly a bourgeois piece of furniture and was produced in vast numbers, as indicated from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which a whole row of such chairs lined up by a wall. The design asserts itself by virtue of its harmonious 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 styles—that was, to say, as brought out in Paris around 1750—conquered most of Europe and has been imitated or copied during the mid-20th century. The design owes the popularity to a combination of comfort and elegance. The seat suits to the human body and grants a relaxed seated position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Typically the seat and back are upholstered, and there are little upholstered pads covering the armrests. Smooth transitions achieved between seat frame, legs, and back cover all the joints, which are constructed on craftsmanlike methodology despite the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of those have wood of rather thick measurements; but every member is deeply molded, all extraneous wood has been taken away, and finer examples would be further embellished with highly delicate and decorative carving. The wood might be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry can be used for any upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; canework is sometimes used rather than upholstery.
English chairs from the 18th century were more open in form than the French. The French touch for stylistic uniformity, which spread from the premier circles in Paris and Versailles through most of France and won 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 products 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.
For a great deal on executive furniture in Brisbane contact Fast Office Furniture today and check our specials.
Sphere: Related Content
Tangalooma Island Resort is a paradise located in Tangalooma, Queensland in Australia. Originally, it was a whaling station and was formed into an island vacation hotspot because of its precious flora and fauna and its glorious views. Couples or families seeking a choice getaway destination can expect to undoubtedly treasure a Tangalooma Island Resort holiday.
Hawaii is home to many beautiful vacation destinations and holiday bookings to these tropical islands can be made by Travel Online. This iconic tourist destination is well-known for its pristine beaches, moderate climate, world-standard shopping facilities, and unique Polynesian culture.