Furniture
Furniture refers to objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (tables), storing items, working, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks).
Furniture is also used to hold objects at a convenient height for work (as horizontal surfaces above the ground, such as tables and desks), or to store things (e.g., cupboards, shelves, and drawers).
People have been using natural objects, such as tree stumps, rocks and moss, as furniture since the beginning of human civilization and continues today in some households/campsites.
Archaeological research shows that from around 30,000 years ago, people started to construct and carve their own furniture, using wood, stone, and animal bones.
The first surviving extant furniture is in the homes of Skara Brae in Scotland, and includes cupboards, dressers and beds all constructed from stone.
[7] During the late Paleolithic or early Neolithic period, from around 30,000 years ago, people began constructing and carving their own furniture, using wood, stone and animal bones.
[8] The earliest evidence for the existence of constructed furniture is a Venus figurine found at the Gagarino site in Russia, which depicts the goddess in a sitting position, on a throne.
[9] A range of unique stone furniture has been excavated in Skara Brae, a Neolithic village in Orkney, Scotland The site dates from 3100 to 2500 BCE and due to a shortage of wood in Orkney, the people of Skara Brae were forced to build with stone, a readily available material that could be worked easily and turned into items for use within the household.
Mortar was in use by around 4000 BCE The inhabitants of the Nile Valley and delta were self-sufficient and were raising barley and emmer (an early variety of wheat) and stored it in pits lined with reed mats.
[14] Egyptian furniture was primarily constructed using wood, but other materials were sometimes used, such as leather,[15] and pieces were often adorned with gold, silver, ivory and ebony, for decoration.
[19] Full chairs were much rarer in early Egypt, being limited to only wealthy and high ranking people, and seen as a status symbol; they did not reach ordinary households until the 18th dynasty.
[22] Other furniture types in ancient Egypt include tables, which are heavily represented in art, but almost nonexistent as preserved items – perhaps because they were placed outside tombs rather than within,[23] as well as beds and storage chests.
[24][25] Historical knowledge of Greek furniture is derived from various sources, including literature, terracotta, sculptures, statuettes, and painted vases.
[26] Wood was shaped by carving, steam treatment, and the lathe, and furniture is known to have been decorated with ivory, tortoise shell, glass, gold or other precious materials.
[36] The most common type of Greek table had a rectangular top supported on three legs, although numerous configurations exist, including trapezoid and circular.
[38] Tables also figured prominently in religious contexts, as indicated in vase paintings, for example, the wine vessel associated with Dionysus, dating to around 450 BCE and now housed at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Very little wooden furniture survives intact, but there is evidence that a variety of woods were used, including maple, citron, beech, oak, and holly.
Similar to the Greeks, Romans used tenons, dowels, nails, and glue to join wooden pieces together, and also practised veneering.
Surfaces and ornaments are gilded, painted plychrome, plated with sheets of gold, emailed in bright colors, and covered in precious stones.
The variety of Byzantine furniture is pretty big: tables with square, rectangle or round top, sumptuous decorated, made of wood sometimes inlaid, with bronze, ivory or silver ornaments; chairs with high backs and with wool blankets or animal furs, with coloured pillows, and then banks and stools; wardrobes were used only for storing books; cloths and valuable objects were kept in chests, with iron locks; the form of beds imitated the Roman ones, but have different designs of legs.
[45] Along with the other arts, the Italian Renaissance of the fourteenth and fifteenth century marked a rebirth in design, often inspired by the Greco-Roman tradition.
A similar explosion of design, and renaissance of culture in general occurred in Northern Europe, starting in the fifteenth century.
The 17th century, in both Southern and Northern Europe, was characterized by opulent, often gilded Baroque designs that frequently incorporated a profusion of vegetal and scrolling ornament.
Although there were some styles that belonged primarily to one nation, such as Palladianism in Great Britain or Louis Quinze in French furniture, others, such as the Rococo and Neoclassicism were perpetuated throughout Western Europe.
The furniture designers of Art Deco, De Stijl, Bauhaus, Jugendstil, Wiener Werkstätte, and Vienna Secession all worked to some degree within the Modernist motto.
Prime examples include furniture designed by George Nelson Associates, Charles and Ray Eames, Paul McCobb, Florence Knoll, Harry Bertoia, Eero Saarinen, Harvey Probber, Vladimir Kagan and Danish modern designers including Finn Juhl and Arne Jacobsen.
The growth of Maker Culture across the Western sphere of influence has encouraged higher participation and development of new, more accessible furniture design techniques.
The traditions out of India, China, Korea, Pakistan, Indonesia (Bali and Java) and Japan are some of the best known, but places such as Mongolia, and the countries of South East Asia have unique facets of their own.
Chinese ornamentation is highly inspired by paintings, with floral and plant life motifs including bamboo trees, chrysanthemums, waterlilies, irises, magnolias, flowers and branches of cherry, apple, apricot and plum, or elongated bamboo leaves; animal ornaments include lions, bulls, ducks, peacocks, parrots, pheasants, roosters, ibises and butterflies.
Higher quality furniture tends to be made out of hardwood, including oak, maple, mahogany, teak, walnut, cherry and birch.
