From each of the furniture objects, the chair may be the imperative one. While the majority of other objects (except the bed) are devised to support objects, the chair supports our human form. The term chair is meant to be said here in the largest sense, from stool to throne to derivative forms such as a bench or 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 clearly definitive.
The social history of the chair is as interesting as its history as a creative art. The chair is not only a physical support and aesthetic artwork; it was also semiotic of social place. In the past royal courts there were important connotations between being seated on a chair with arms, on a chair with a back but without arms, or worse having to squat on a stool. Since the 20th century, a director’s and manager’s chair has been seen as a signifier of superior standing, and in democratic government debate the speaker sits on an elevated floor.
As its furniture construction, the chair encompasses a wealth of variations. There are chairs manufactured to fit man’s age and physical condition (the high chair, the wheelchair) and to connotate his rank in society (the executive chair, the throne). During the olden days there were chairs for birthing (birth chairs); from the 20th century, there have been chairs to die in (the electric chair). We make chairs with one, two, three, or four legs, chairs with or without arms, and chairs with or without backs. We have chairs that can be folded and put away, chairs on wheels, and chairs on runners.
Modern day living has derived special chairs for use in automobiles and aircraft. All of these chair forms has perfected to fit to evolving human needs. Due to its unique connection with man, the chair exists to its full purpose only when utilised. Whereas it isn’t relevant to one’s appreciation of a cupboard or a chest of drawers whether there are things inside or not, a chair is really understood and fairly regarded with a person using it, for chair and sitter need the other. Thus the different areas of the chair have been labeled according to the limbs of the human shape: arms, legs, feet, back, and seat.
Because the original function of the chair is to support the human body, its worth is judged primarily from how suitably it does measure up to this practical use. In the build of the chair, the builder is bound by some static legislation and principal measurements. Within these regulations, however, the chair maker has large freedom.
The history of the chair covered a period of several thousand years. There were cultures that created iconic chair shapes, expressions of the principal task in the arenas of skill and aesthetics. Within those societies, individual 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 structures of expert craft, are known from tombs. First of these is a four-legged chair with a back, the other a folding stool. The original Egyptian chair has four legs formed similar to those of a chosen animal, a curved seat, with a sloping back supported with vertical stretchers. In this design a durable triangular design was made. There was from our knowledge no notable differentiation between the design of Egyptian thrones and chairs for typical non-royals. The only variation existed in the intricacy of its ornamentation, in the particulars of expensive inlays. The Egyptian folding stool in all likelihood was manufactured for an easily portable seat for officers. As a camp stool this type stayed around during much later points in time. But the stool then also was created as the task of a ceremonial seat, its mechanical history as a folding stool neglected or forgotten. This can today be seen, 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 made in the structure of folding stools but are not able to be folded as the seats are created out of wood. The plain build of the folding stool, consisting of two frames that spin on metal bolts and support a seat of leather or fabric held between them, was seen again some time later from the Bronze Age folding chairs of Scandinavia and northern Germany. The most well known of those is the folding stool, made out of ashwood, which can now be found at Guldhøj (National Museum in Copenhagen).
Greece and Rome
The typical Greek chair, the klismos, is seen not from any ancient item still existing but as seen in a trove of pictorial material. The best recognised is the klismos drawn on the Hegeso Stele at the Dipylon burial area outside Athens (c. 410 BC). The klismos is a chair that had a backward-sloping, curved backboard and four curving legs, only two of those could be seen. These unique legs were presumed to have been executed out of bent wood and were thus bore a large amount of pressure under the weight of the sitter. The joints fastening the legs to the frame of the seat are therefore extremely solid and were plainly drawn.
The Romans adopted the Greek design; designs of casts of seated Romans offer designs of a more heavyset and in appearance slightly more crudely constructed klismos. Both features, the light or heavy, were popularised during the Classicist time. The klismos design is used in French Empire design, in English Regency, and in special brands of considerable individuality of Denmark and Sweden circa 1800.
China
The history of the chair in China cannot be traced as far back as the progression of the chair in Egypt and Greece. From the time of the Tang dynasty (AD 618–907) a full folio of images and paintings was kept, detailing the interiors and exterior of Chinese buildings and the kinds of furniture. Also kept of the 16th century are a number of chairs made of wood or lacquered wood, that hold an interesting resemblance to styles of ancient chairs.
Same as in Egypt, there existed two fundamental chair designs in China: a chair with four legs and a folding stool. That chair can be designed both with or without arms though always having its square seat and straight stiles (straight side supports) to firm the back. In one style, however, the stiles were lightly curved by the arms so as to fit the angle of the S-shaped back splat (the central upright of a chairback). The three parts were mortised on the yoke-like top rail. While the idea of a back splat then had a foundation for English chairs of the Queen Anne period, wooden members that just to a restricted extent reinforce corner joints (and furthermore were loose in the bargain) represent an element solely to Chinese chairs. The four legs sit through the seat frame, which stops around the rounded staves. Every member is round in section or possesses rounded edges—references perhaps to the bamboo tradition. The seat is unpleasant to sit in and occasionally had a plaited bottom. These chairs required the sitter to hold themselves stiff and upright; if too much pressure is pushed on the back, the chair has a way of toppling. In patriarchal Chinese households of this epoch armchairs probably were allowed only for older persons in the family, for they were greatly respected.
The Chinese folding stool is understood to have been brought to China from the West. It is akin so very much from the Egyptian and Scandinavian folding stools, but it has a variation in that the top rail is elegantly held to the two legs of the stool with a curved member, which is generally seen with metal mounts. From a Western viewpoint the resultant effect of both these furniture styles is stylized. The constructive and aesthetic issues are combined in a style that is all at once naïve and refined. The piecemeal appearance is an outcome of the fact that the individual members do not look to have been fixed by either glue or screws, but were mortised with one another and locked into position in the style of a Chinese puzzle.
Spain: 17th century
The Golden Age of Spain in the 17th century also put its name on the chair. Works of art display a kind of chair with a relatively crude wooden frame; a back and seat, nailed on, consisting of two layers of leather, with horsehair stuffing between the layers, stitched to bring out a pattern of little pads. The front board and a related board in the back could be folded after loosening some tiny iron hooks. Therefore the chair was a readily portable piece of furniture for traveling which, in the same period, gave the status of a four-legged, high-backed armchair.
The Netherlands: 17th century
A low, square, upholstered design of chair can be found in engravings of interiors of wealthy Dutch homes by Abraham Bosse, a French artist, as well as in paintings by the Dutch artists Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Terborch. Though this kind of chair is also seen in countries where Dutch styles of interior decoration and Dutch furniture won acclaim, it is not certain that the form actually began in The Netherlands. Usually, the legs of the chair were smooth, round in section, and of thin 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 numbers, as evidenced 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 shapely proportions and delicate upholstery in gilt leather or fabric edged with fringes.
France and England: 17th and 18th centuries
The French Rococo chair in its most mature of styles—that was, as created in Paris around 1750—spread through most of Europe and was imitated or copied into the mid-20th century. The chair owes the popularity to a combination of comfort and elegance. The seat suits 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 tiny upholstered pads on the armrests. Smooth transitions are made between seat frame, legs, and back cover all the joints, which are solidly constructed on craftsmanlike methods despite the absence of stretchers between the legs.
French Rococo chairs and imitations of those are made from wood of quite thick density; but every member is deeply molded, all extraneous wood has been taken away, and more upmarket designs can be further embellished with very delicate and decorative carving. The wood could be varnished, stained, painted, or gilded. Silk damask or tapestry is often used for all of the upholstery on the seat, back, and armrests; canework is sometimes used instead of upholstery.
English chairs of the 18th century were more variable in style than the French. The French manner for stylistic uniformity, which came from the aristocratic circles in Paris and Versailles through most of France and became the preference 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 well-known 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 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, suggest that completely new chair forms will probably be evolved in the future.
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