Chairs: Craftsmanship Changes and Literati "Chairs"
In October 2021, an exhibition called "A Chair" kicked off at Chengdu Zhi Art Museum. Centered on chairs, the exhibition showcases nearly 30 works from 10 countries, including installations, paintings, sculptures, photography, etc. The chairs we are used to become objects of observation and thinking.
1. It's not just about the way you sit.
In the modern world, chairs are a part of everyday life, and we don’t pay much attention to their existence, but the history of human beings sitting on chairs is actually not long ago, and the process of accepting and popularizing this kind of sitting is also different in different cultures. same.
American scholar Witold Roberzinski wrote in the book "Now I Sit: From Chrismus Chairs to Plastic Chairs: A Natural History", "The world is divided into people who sit on the ground and people who sit on the ground. People in chairs" and don't take chair sitting for granted. Of course, whether to use chairs is by no means the basis for judging whether a civilization is advanced or not. "Japanese and Koreans have long known the existence of seats, but they still choose to sit on floor mats." The use of chairs involves a complete set of complex home settings, such as dressing tables, dining tables, desks and other supporting furniture, which are obviously very different from the living environment required for sitting on the floor.
According to furniture historian Florence Dedampier's "Chair: A History", the earliest human chairs appeared in ancient Egypt. Their images appear on the murals and sculptures of the mausoleum, and most of them are exclusive utensils for the nobles. This work examines the evolution of the chair from ancient Greece to the Roman Empire, from the Renaissance to the modern age—not a linear, progressive history. For example, between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance, the development of chairs was stagnant – as De Dampier puts it: "It was either a stool or a throne."
The appearance of chairs has changed people's body posture and formed a way of life. In the 18th century, the French doctor Nicolas Andre de Bois Legard first studied the problem of sitting posture. In 1741, he analyzed the relationship between human bones, muscular system and chair for the first time, providing anatomical basis for chair design. Base.
However, chairs are not just about a way of sitting, they often symbolize status. King Louis XIV of France forbade anyone to sit in his presence without permission—except his princes and grandchildren. But even then, they were only allowed to sit on stools, not chairs.
In China, the history of the chair is also mixed with the history of social, cultural and material development. In 2020, Mr. Jia Pingwa published a novel called "Temporarily Sitting", in which he mentioned chairs of various styles, such as Ming style, Qing style, and modern style, as well as various types of chairs such as huanghuali, lobular red sandalwood, etc. The wood used to make the seat reflects the development of the chair from one side. The novel also touches on the origin of Chinese chairs indirectly, describing Luohan beds, rope beds, etc.—they are important elements in the history of Chinese furniture and the original form of chairs we are familiar with.
Many documents show that in Chinese culture, high-seat seats came to the Central Plains along with the spread of Buddhism to the East during the Eastern Han Dynasty, and gradually became popular after the Tang Dynasty. Historian Mr. Weng Tongwen's "Chinese Seat Customs" examines the origin and development of chairs in detail, and points out that "the history of seat development is divided into three major stages: seat, bed, and chair". The book cites the 1967 article "On the Origin of Chinese Seats" by American Sinologist Donald Holzman, who believes that the article "analyzes the fallacies of various schools, and presents conclusive evidence to prove that the rope bed is indeed a back to rely on, and that It also points out that the seat part is fixed and cannot be folded, and it is pointed out that the rope bed that Fo Tucheng sat on at the end of the Western Jin Dynasty is the earliest example. Here at the same time, the exotic origin and Buddhist origin of the chair are pointed out. Mr. Pu Anguo, a furniture historian in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, believes that the rope bed depicted in the murals in Cave 285 of Mogao Grottoes in the Western Wei Dynasty is "the earliest image of a chair in the history of ancient Chinese furniture", and it already has the basic elements of a chair such as armrests, backrests and backrests.
Whether it is the Eastern Han Dynasty, Western Jin Dynasty or Western Wei Dynasty, chairs do come from the West and are inseparable from the eastward transmission of Buddhism. This kind of seat has continuously evolved from ancient forms, from rope beds in monks' meditation rooms to folk objects, and has experienced a long historical evolution. By the Song Dynasty, the basic forms of common chairs such as back chairs, chairs, and armchairs had been formed, and they reached the pinnacle in Ming Dynasty furniture. The Ming-style chairs are simple and noble, calm and dignified, with elegant and smooth lines, which can be regarded as a model in the history of world furniture. In traditional Chinese interior spaces, they are not only daily-use utensils, but also have the function of etiquette. For example, a grand master's chair placed in the hall has a sense of majesty, while an elegant and beautiful rose chair reminds people of a boudoir or a study.
The changing shape of the seat also reflects the journey of material culture across national borders. As far as China is concerned, this journey started with the high seats from the west and completed a cycle when the Ming and Qing seats were exported to Europe.
Some of the chairs exhibited by Zhi Art Museum were brought into China from Europe. As early as the 17th century, Chinese chairs were exported to Europe along with the export trade, which influenced European furniture design. At the beginning of the 18th century, the British began to incorporate Chinese floral decoration and lacquer painting into local furniture design, which was manifested in Queen Anne-style furniture. In 1754, Thomas Chippendale published an important book in the history of Western furniture, "The Gentleman and the Furniture Maker's Guide", which included many Chinese furniture design drawings and displayed 11 kinds of Chinese chairs, which had a wide impact in Europe. In 1757, William Chambers published the Atlas of Designs of Chinese Houses, Furniture, Clothing and Household Utensils, which systematically introduced Chinese architecture, furniture, clothing and garden art. The highly appealing design style of Chinese furniture has built a bridge between the East and the West, and inspired British furniture designers to learn from the aspects of shape, lines, carvings, etc., and carried out localized interpretations, forming a unique "Chinese style". "furniture. The chairs left at that time were later regarded as precious works of art and hidden in major museums.
Europeans are obsessed with the furniture design and workmanship of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in China. In 1944, the German scholar Gustav Eck wrote "Chinese Huali Furniture Map", which listed the Chinese furniture he collected and handled, including Huanghuali armchairs, official hat chairs, and back chairs. This is also the first book to systematically study Ming-style furniture.
In addition to design, material and cultural exchanges during this period also led to changes in materials. Some scholars point out that rattan, a relatively cheap and friendly material, comes from Asia. Rattan can be used locally. In wooden chairs, rattan can be used for both the sitting surface and the backrest. Chippendale writes below a drawing of a Chinese chair: "They usually have a rattan seat, with loose cushions." This design was favored by the British. Among the surviving chairs, there are many similar designs of wooden structure and rattan seat surface. The most famous one is probably the chair that the great writer Charles Dickens sat on.
2. Dickens chair.
In the autumn of 1940, when Fiorello LaGuardia, the mayor of New York City, looked at the chair Dickens sat on, he probably wanted to experience the feeling of writing a novel. After sitting through it, it caused a cultural relic damage incident. The chair is particularly famous, in large part because of a famous painting entitled Dickens's Empty Chair (1870) by the British painter Samuel Luke Fields, painted the day after Dickens's death. This painting was widely circulated at the time, and the empty chair represented the departure of the writer's physical body and the immortality of his spirit.
This chair has had a glorious history. Many of Dickens' works were done sitting on it. He himself liked the breathable rattan seat of the chair, and wrote about its benefits in letters. It is likely to have witnessed the birth of popular novels such as "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Great Expectations". It reminds people of the lonely night and the torment of creation.
Robert-William Bass painted Dreams of Dickens (1875), in which Dickens sits in this chair as countless figures stumble out of his head. As he writes, the chair bears an enormous weight, and the imaginary world rests on it. It has the closest relationship with the writer and spends the longest time alone. In the night, when all the hustle and bustle has dissipated, only it is still there, on the scene of creation-it keeps all the secrets of this writer.
For a writer, most work is done sitting. In a typical study room, although Wenwan Qingfu can show the style and taste, it is not an essential item. In the years of "running in", a chair and the writer have formed a "symbiotic relationship". As a static material base, it carries the gallop of the spirit. In English, there is a joking saying of "armchair traveller" (the traveler on the chair). For those who stay at home, the chair is equivalent to the spiritual steed.
However, people can walk around, and chairs are relatively immobile, and the position they place gradually has a symbolic meaning, so there is the term "chairman", and there is a ranking of the top chairs. There is a similar phenomenon in Chinese culture. Mr. Wang Shixiang wrote in "Ming-style Furniture Research": "The top chairs in the Ming Dynasty were mostly set in prominent positions in the nave, and they tended to surpass the four seats. There is also the saying of 'the top chair', which shows that it is noble and lofty." Qian Zhong In Mr. Shu's "The Besieged City", he has the following great opinions: "There is always someone to replace someone, and there is always someone to sit on the seat. Resigning in anger is only a disadvantage for the resigned person, and the resigned position is indifferent. If the chair is empty, you won’t feel hungry, and if the chair stands upright, your legs won’t get sore.” In Mr. Qian’s words, the chair seems to be alive.
Charles Dickens' "The Pickwick Papers" tells the story of a "chair spirit". The protagonist of the story is a frustrated traveler in the business field. He stays at an inn and finds out that the innkeeper is a widow from a wealthy family. In despair, he drank a few more glasses, and in a half-asleep state, he saw an old chair in the room changing into a human face. "The carving on the back of the chair gradually changed into the outline and expression of an old wrinkled face; the damask cushion became an antique lace waistcoat; the knobs became a pair of feet, wearing red cloth shoes; The whole chair looks like an ugly old man from the previous century, with his hands on his waist." Under the guidance of this chair, the traveler revealed the secret of the suitor, exposed his true face, and finally hugged him. Beauty returns.
3. Thackeray chair.
Dickens's contemporaries, who were of equal artistic attainment, and occasionally rivaled the novelist Thackeray, also had a rattan-topped chair with a similar structure. He wrote a poem entitled "The Chair with Rattan Face", which focused on describing the intimate relationship between people and chairs. In this poem, Thackeray first presents his "studio" - we can still visit this hut in his former residence to this day. It has a small space and displays a variety of old things, but it is the poet's "small and comfortable kingdom" and a pure land for him to "escape from the troubles and worries of the world";
The corners of this cozy cottage are filled with good-for-nothing trinkets and stupid old books, and clumsy old odds and ends and rustic relics, and cheap finds and cheap gifts from friends.
It contained "old armour, prints, pictures, pipes, china (all chipped), / Old rickety tables and chairs with broken backs," etc., making up a "treasure trove of bargains." The poet and his friends talked about the past and the present here, and it was a joy. However, among all the old things, the poet is most fond of an old chair, "Even the best sofa stuffed with hair / Can't replace you, my rattan chair." The reason is that it once accepted A lady named Fanny. The poem reads:
It's a bent-legged, high-backed, moth-eaten chair, with a creaky back, bent and twisted legs; but one morning Fanny sat on it, and I've bless you, love you, ever since My old wicker chair.
In the dead of night, when the poet sees things and thinks about people, he will see Fanny sitting on this chair by candlelight, "still smiling, gentle and pleasant, fresh and beautiful". The poet's language is humorous, expressing the emotions in his heart, pinning the memory of Fanny on this old thing, and even writing: "I am eager to see, hungry and thirsty, hope in despair,/I hope I can turn myself into this wicker chair "In the old and crowded attic, a dilapidated chair seems to be far from romantic, but here it wins with its simplicity and unpretentiousness, which makes people sigh. The wish to "become a chair" may seem ridiculous, but expresses a deep emotion. Chairs and people do share a unique affinity.
Edogawa Ranpo's masterpiece "The Chair in the World" tells the story of the protagonist "turning into a chair" in order to get close to others. A chair maker designed an armchair, and it was a whim to get in and blend into the chair. "All kinds of customers took turns sitting on my lap, but no one noticed that I was in the chair. No one noticed. They were convinced that it was The things that make up the soft cushions are actually human flesh and blood thighs."
4. The Machine Age: The Disappearance of Craftsmanship.
When we look at an old chair, we actually look not only at its material, style and design, but more at the human touch attached to it. Japanese folk art expert Liu Zongyue used the term "beauty of intimacy" to describe the relationship between utensils and people, pointing out that "the utensils have the nature of living together day and night, so it is natural to have the beauty of intimacy, which is a world of 'warmth' or 'fun'. ". This is a quality exclusive to everyday utensils. It is this beauty of intimacy that makes a chair that has been used for years feel human. It means the way of production and consumption of things, and the relationship between people and things in these two processes.
In the Victorian era in which Dickens and Thackeray lived, great changes had taken place in the production methods of utensils, and the way people used utensils also changed accordingly. The designer and poet of that era, William Morris, pointed out: "In furniture making, a skill closely related to art, there are also two products, one is common and lacks artistry; the other is rare and has an artificial element. , a kind of artistry is attached to it.” The craftsman puts emotion into the objects, and the users of the objects also put emotion into them. For a craftsman, making a seat is not only for practical function, but also for creating an imaginative object.
In the traditional chair making process, an old carpenter carefully serves a piece of wood. "Although the maker is an ordinary person in the real world, the utensils he made have already been active in the world on the other side. Although the artist cannot recognize his own value, everything is accepted by the Pure Land of Beauty. It can produce masterpieces handed down from generation to generation." - Liu Zongyue said so. Any production is naturally divine and poetic, including observation, experience and grasp of the world, and embodies an intimate, harmonious and harmonious relationship with materials. In the eyes of a carpenter, its appreciation and use have been taken into account when making it—the moment the carving knife falls, it is the fate of a piece of wood. After careful construction by craftsmen, each table and chair has its own character. Mr. Wang Shixiang has the theory of "sixteen grades" about Ming-style furniture, including simplicity, simplicity, simplicity, and dignity, etc., and describes the artistic conception of Ming-style furniture with a poetic environment. Such furniture is of course humane and has a unique spiritual temperament.
In the environment of machine production, the production process of a piece of equipment is decomposed into fragments, and a worker is responsible for a certain detail, but cannot know the overall situation.As Morris puts it, "The present state of these arts is so mechanized that they do not exhaust the human mind." The relationship between people and labor and equipment is alienated. In the era of Dickens and Thackeray, factory production more and more replaced handmade, and the furniture handed down from generation to generation was gradually antiqued, separated from the chain of daily use, and mass production and one-off substitutes occupied the people's daily life. In this regard, Morris lamented: "The art has lost the best craftsman." The relationship between people and the surrounding things is becoming more and more alienated, the world is becoming more and more strange, and the depreciation of craftsmanship has also led to the disappearance of art. Whether it is Dickens' novels or Thackeray's poems, they all reflect this changed production mode of objects and the relationship between objects and people. There are fewer and fewer old objects that are familiar and can be handed down from generation to generation. The world is filled with brand-new objects, and therefore more and more discarded objects are accumulated. Facing a chair produced in a factory, people have no more stories to tell.
At the end of that era, the poet and novelist Hardy wrote the poem "Old Furniture", which described people's nostalgia, nostalgia and sense of time when surrounded by household utensils handed down from generation to generation. On these "shiny and familiar artifacts" he could vaguely see the "knobs and grooves of the touch" of "hands of generations". They carry the memory of a family. However, Hardy said with emotion: "Today's world does not need / Such a man who observes objects-has no goal! / He should not stay here, / He should leave sadly." This is a sentimental elegy. Artifacts have become relics of time, in the looming halo, full of warmth and embarrassment. With the arrival of the short lifespan of utensils and the popularity of blindly pursuing new values, people's emotions are gradually becoming unfixed and unattached. The poet laughed at himself that he was out of place and rebelled against the spirit of the times. It's a tribute to nostalgia and an insinuation of an era where the new is despised.
