The History of the Chair
From all the furniture objects, the chair could be the imperative one. While most other pieces (save the bed) are created to support objects, the chair supports our human form. The term chair should be used here in the most general sense, from stool to throne to further kinds like the bench and sofa, which might be looked upon as extended or connected chairs, and whose character (i.e., whether they are intended for sitting or reclining) is not obviously definitive.
The social history of the chair is as interesting as its history as a creative art. The chair is not merely a physical support and aesthetic artwork; it was historically a signifier of social standing. Within the past royal courts there were important distinctions between being seated on a chair with arms, or a chair with a back but no arms, or worse having to sit on a stool. From the past century, the director’s and/or manager’s chair has been an indicator of superior position, like in democratic governments the speaker sits on an elevated floor.
As its furniture creation, the chair is employed for a number of various purposes. There are chairs designed to attend to man’s age and physical capabilities (the high chair, the wheelchair) and for his position 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 have chairs that can be folded up, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Modern living has demanded unique chairs in automobiles and aircraft. Every one of these chair types has been changed to conform to growing human uses. Because of its close importance with man, the chair appears to its full significance only when used. Though it doesn’t make any difference to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a bureau whether there is anything inside or not, a chair is really seen best and fairly regarded with a person using it, because chair and sitter need one another. Thus the several elements of the chair have been named like the areas of our human parts: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the clear function of the chair is to support our body, its worth is valued principally on how completely it fulfills this practical job. Within the creation of a chair, the maker is bound by particular static regulation and principal measurements. Inside these limits, however, the chair builder has great freedom.
The history of the chair lasted a period of several thousand years. There existed cultures that held significant chair shapes, as expressive of the highest work in the industries of technique and creativity. Among such peoples, special 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 lives of Louis XV and Louis XVI.
Egypt
Two ancient Egyptian chair forms, both the items of skilled make, were known from tombs. First of them is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The classical Egyptian chair would have had four legs shaped similar to those of a designated animal, a curved seat, and leading to a sloping back supported with vertical stretchers. In this design a solid triangular design was made. There was in our view no significant change from the construction of Egyptian thrones and chairs for regular populace. The real change lied in the type of ornamentation, in the evidence of more valuable inlays. The Egyptian folding stool most probably was manufactured to be an easily packed seat for soldiers. As a camp stool the type stayed for much later points. But the stool also then took on the character of a ceremonial seat, its original history as a folding stool neglected or forgotten. This can already be observed, from as early as 1366–57 BC in two stools, crafted 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 because the seats are created with wood. The easy construction of the folding stool, composed of two frames that turn on metal bolts and support a seat of leather or fabric fastened between them, was then seen somewhat later during the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The best recognised of those is the folding stool, of ashwood, now seen at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The unique Greek chair, the klismos, is seen not with any ancient item still in form but as in a wealth of pictorial material. The better known is the klismos displayed on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial ground just out of Athens (c. 410 BC). This klismos is a chair with a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, but only two of them can be visible. These strange legs were probably executed out of bent wood and were thus subjected to great pressure with the weight of the sitter. The joints securing the legs to the frame of the seat had to be therefore very durable and were particularly indicated.
The Romans embued the Greek design; quite a few models of seated Romans offer evidence of a more heavyset and apparently kind of more crudely designed klismos. Both types, the light or the heavy, were popularised during the Classicist epoch. The klismos influence is found in French Empire design, in English Regency, and in special brands of considerable uniqueness in Denmark and Sweden from 1800.
China
The ancestry of the chair in China can not be followed as well as the progression of the chairs in Egypt and Greece. Since the time of the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) an unbroken collection of drawings and artworks has been kept safe, displaying the interior and exteriors of Chinese houses and the kinds of furniture. Another preservation since the 16th century are some chairs of wood or lacquered wood, that bear an intriguing resemblance to designs of past chairs.
As was the case in Egypt, two chair designs persisted in China: a chair with four legs and a folding stool. The four-legged chair is constructed both with and without arms though always having its square seat and straight stiles (vertical side supports) to firm the back. In one kind, it must be said, the stiles could be marginally curved on top of the arms for the purpose of conform to the form of the S-shaped back splat (the centre upright of the chairback). All three sections are mortised on the yoke-like top rail. Though the design of this back splat had an influence on English chairs during the Queen Anne period, wooden pieces that just to a particular capability reinforce corner joints (and furthermore are loose in the result) are a feature signatory to Chinese chairs. The four legs are set through the seat frame, which finishes about the rounded staves. Each member is round in section or possesses rounded edges—referable perhaps to the bamboo tradition. The seat is not comfortable and might have had a plaited texture. These chairs required the sitter to remain stiff and upright; when too much pressure is placed on the back, the chair has a way of falling over. In patriarchal Chinese houses of this period armchairs likely were only for the senior members of the family, for they were esteemed greatly.
The Chinese folding stool is presumed to have come to China from the West. It is not dissimilar that much from the Egyptian and Scandinavian folding stools, but it possesses a variation in that the top rail is prettily joined to the two legs of the stool by means of a curved member, which is more often than not designed with metal mounts. From a Western perspective the ultimate effect of these furniture designs is stylized. The structure and aesthetic parts are combined in a way that is both naïve and refined. The piecemeal appearance is an outcome of the way that the individual parts do not look to have been affixed by use of either glue or screws, but have been mortised on one another and held in position in the style of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain in the 17th century also left its name on the chair. Paintings project a design of chair with a relatively crude wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, with two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing between, stitched to produce a pattern of little pads. The front board and a related board in the back could be folded after loosening some small iron hooks. Therefore the chair was a readily portable piece of furniture for traveling which, in the same period, gave the dignity of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered design of chair is evidenced in engravings of the interior of rich Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, as well as in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. Although this kind of chair can also be found in countries where Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won favour, it is not believed that the innovation actually was instigated in The Netherlands. Usually, the legs of the chair will be smooth, round in section, and of slender shape; they are in some cases baluster-shaped (vase-shaped) or twisted. It is patently a bourgeois piece of furniture and was manufactured in vast amounts, as can be surmised from one of Abraham Bosse’s engravings, in which an entire row of these chairs lined up by a wall. The style asserts itself by virtue of its shapely 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 style—that was, to say, as progressed in Paris around 1750—spread over most of Europe and has been imitated or copied in the mid-20th century. The design owes the popularity to a combination of relaxation and charm. The seat adheres to the human body and grants a relaxed sitting position. The back is bow-shaped, the legs curved. Usually the seat and back are upholstered, and there are small upholstered pads covering the armrests. Smooth transitions are made between seat frame, legs, and back disguise all the joints, which are constructed solidly on craftsmanlike principles despite the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of them have wood of relatively thick measurements; but all the members are deeply molded, all extraneous wood has been sanded away, and more expensive chairs can be further embellished with highly delicate and decorative engravings. The wood might be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry is often used for all the upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; crosshatched cane is sometimes used rather than upholstery.
English chairs from the 18th century were more varied in form than the French. The French touch for stylistic uniformity, which came from the aristocratic circles in Paris and Versailles through most of France and became the favourite 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 well-known and was widely distributed throughout the world.
Late 18th to 20th century
During 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 versions 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, purport that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
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