Now I Sit Me Down (5 page)

Art and Function

I own an eighteenth-century French snuffbox, a family heirloom, but I don't have a rococo chair. Not that I could afford one—a gilded Louis XV armchair, originally commissioned by Madame de Pompadour, sold at Sotheby's in 2013 for $653,000. In any case, a rococo chair would look out of place in our home, which is austere by ancien régime standards. However, I do have a pair of beautiful chairs that similarly combine art with function. They are fully upholstered armchairs, modern versions of a bergère. The plump upholstery swells lasciviously, like Madame de Pompadour's bodice, and the gently curved legs are tapered, giving the impression of a ballerina
en pointe
. The upholstery material has a copper-colored thread running through it that creates an eye-catching glimmer as well as a pleasing geometrical pattern. The chairs have a languorous sense of luxury. It's hard to pinpoint exactly why. It has something to do with the generous proportions, the sensuous curves of the upholstery, and the shapely saber legs. The other chairs in my living room appear dowdy compared with this pair of glamorous beauties.

The beauties are the work of John Dunnigan, a contemporary Rhode Island furniture maker whose work is sometimes called “studio furniture.” Like eighteenth-century cabinetwork, studio furniture is produced one piece at a time. Moreover, like his earlier counterpart, the studio furniture maker is able to shape wood, finish surfaces, and stretch fabrics in ways that are either impossible or impractical in a factory or on an assembly line. Making furniture the old-fashioned way provides opportunities for personal expression which, in Dunnigan's case, is sometimes mischievous. “One of the best things about rules is figuring out how to break them,” he says. The rule that my chairs break is the rule of symmetry. The curved backs, which resemble lotus leaves, are asymmetrical, each chair a mirror of its mate, which makes them appear to be leaning toward each other—as if they were separated at birth. They are definitely a pair.

American studio furniture originated in the 1950s. What distinguished woodworkers such as Wharton Esherick, George Nakashima, and Sam Maloof from other furniture designers was their firm rejection of mass production (they built the furniture themselves, by hand) as well as their use of preindustrial materials (they worked exclusively in wood). The handcrafted furniture movement of the 1950s is sometimes called a revival, but it was a revival of skills, not of forms. This plain and undecorated furniture, although often inspired by early American folk models, resembles the abstract sculptures of Henry Moore and Jean Arp, a curious mixture of preindustrial craft and modernist aesthetics.

Conoid Chair (George Nakashima)

Dunnigan belongs to the second generation of studio furniture makers, which emerged in the 1980s. Some of these craftsmen moved from utility to artistic expression, creating fanciful chairs that are more like sculpture than furniture. Others accepted the traditional discipline of furniture-making, combining utility with beauty. Dunnigan belongs to the second group—his chairs not only look like chairs, they are often versions of specific types of chairs: armchairs, slipper chairs, side chairs, sofas. Versions, but not imitations. The exaggerated wedge-shaped seats of my chairs, for example, create the impression of forced perspective so that the chairs seem to be opening up to receive the sitter, and owe something to eighteenth-century cabriole chairs. The faceted saber legs, on the other hand, recall the klismos, while the plump asymmetry and the contrasting textures of bubinga wood and cotton damask veer away from historical precedent. Every time I walk through the living room, I can't help running my hand over the curved back. What does that tactile experience of a chair have to do with sitting? Nothing—and everything.

Pair of armchairs (John Dunnigan)

What about comfort? “There is a necessary distinction to be made between trying to design something that is comfortable,” Dunnigan once wrote, “and trying to design something that is not uncomfortable.” Defining sitting comfort is like trying to prove a negative, because it is often discomfort that is more immediately experienced when sitting in a poorly designed chair. This may be soreness of the thighs if the front edge of the seat is too high, or stiffness of the neck if the angle of the chairback causes the head to be out of alignment with the spine. The most common discomfort is felt when a chair is too hard, which causes stresses in the muscles and tissues of the body.

My Dunnigan chairs are extremely comfortable. Both my wife and I, despite a difference in body size (I am larger), find the chairs equally accommodating. For all their resemblance to a French bergère these are not easy chairs. Dunnigan says that he wanted to replicate the calm position of someone meditating—back straight, arms at rest. “I wanted a person to be able to sit without noticing the chair.” The sitting position in my chair is upright rather than slouched, so the head, neck, and spine are aligned; the arms are slightly lower than usual, so the shoulders are relaxed. The exact form of the chair is the result of trial and error; Dunnigan built a number of fully upholstered mock-ups before he finalized the dimensions.

The sprung upholstery of my chairs has a lot to do with their comfort. Sprung upholstery appeared in the nineteenth century and is not normally associated with modern designer furniture, which tends to rely on foam and thin padding. The presence of sprung upholstery in Dunnigan's chairs is a reminder that truly comfortable sitting furniture is difficult to achieve without carefully considered upholstery, and that a good chair provides support for the body as well as pleasure for the eye.

Dunnigan has given a lot of thought to the art of furniture-making.

If I had to describe my furniture, I would say that it's sensual sometimes, that it's comfortable sometimes, that it's traditional or historically referenced sometimes, but it's really about what I see as a basic issue of human existence—it's about how a person moves their body in space and how they interact with other objects. Furniture is about how the body sits on it or puts something on it. It would be the same for someone living in 2000
A.D.
or 2000
B.C.

This is an important insight. Yes, a chair is an everyday object—even if it's sometimes decorated—but it's an everyday object with which the human body has an intimate relationship. You sit down in an armchair and it embraces you, you rub against it, you caress the fabric, touch the wood, grip the arms. It is this intimacy, not merely utility, that ultimately distinguishes a beautiful chair from a beautiful painting. If you sit on it, can it still be art? Perhaps it is more.

 

THREE

Sitting Up

There is a pivotal early scene in David Lean's film
Lawrence of Arabia
in which T. E. Lawrence and his superior, Colonel Brighton, visit the desert encampment of Prince Faisal, a leader of the Arab Revolt. The royal tent is spartan yet luxurious, patterned woven cloths hang from the low ceiling, a large brass samovar gleams in the candlelight, the ground is covered with a rich carpet. There is no furniture; the men sit on the carpet. Brighton in his tailored uniform, polished Sam Browne belt, and riding boots looks distinctly ill at ease with his legs awkwardly stretched out in front of him. Lawrence, a lieutenant and less formally dressed, appears slightly more comfortable, with his legs folded to one side. The prince, attired in a dark robe and a white
ghutrah
, reclines on a pile of sheepskins, while his colleague, Sherif Ali, leans casually against a tent pole. The various postures cinematically underline a central point: the relaxed Bedouins are at home in this place—the desert—while the stiff English colonel is an interloper. Lawrence is somewhere in between.

The world is divided into people who sit on the floor and those who sit on chairs. In a classic study of human posture around the world, the anthropologist Gordon W. Hewes identified no fewer than one hundred common sitting positions. “At least a fourth of mankind habitually takes the load off its feet by crouching in a deep squat, both at rest and at work,” he observed. Deep squatting is favored by people in Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America, but sitting cross-legged on the floor is almost as common. Many South Asians cook, dine, work, and relax in that position. Sedentary kneeling, that is, sitting on the heels with the knees on the floor, is practiced by Japanese, Koreans, and Eurasians, and also used by Muslims at prayer. The half-kneeling position, one knee up and one down, that I saw in ancient Egyptian paintings occurs among Australian aborigines, some native Americans, and black Africans; a variant in the American West is known as the “cowboy squat.” Certain Native American tribes in the Southwest, as well as Melanesians, customarily sit on the floor with legs stretched straight out or crossed at the ankles. Sitting with the legs folded to one side—Lawrence's position above—is described by Hewes as a predominantly female posture in many tribal societies.

The diversity of different postures around the world could be caused by differences in climate, dress, or lifestyle. Cold or damp floors would discourage kneeling and squatting and might lead people to seek raised alternatives; tight clothing would tend to inhibit deep squatting and cross-legged sitting; nomadic peoples would be less likely to use furniture than urban societies; and so on. But cause-and-effect does not explain why folding stools originated in ancient Egypt, a region with a warm, dry climate. Or why the Japanese and Koreans, who have cold winters, both traditionally sat on floor mats. Or why the nomadic Mongols traveled with collapsible furniture, while the equally nomadic Bedouins did not.

Hewes explained that he did not include the reclining position in his research because he did not find sufficient photographic evidence. That is a shame because reclining has always been a comfortable position for the body at rest. The ancient Egyptians used beds, and may have reclined on couches, although these do not appear in wall paintings—banquet scenes show people on chairs, or sitting on the ground. The earliest pictorial evidence of dining in a reclined position is a seventh-century
B.C.
bas-relief in the British Museum. The alabaster carving sometimes called
The Garden Party
shows an Assyrian king and his wife being served food and drink outdoors—they are celebrating a victorious battle. The king is reclining on a couch that resembles a chaise longue, while the queen is seated nearby in an armchair; they share a table laden with food. What is unusual about the furniture is that it is very tall: the couch is about five feet off the ground, and the queen's armchair, which reminds me of a lifeguard's chair, is waist-high and requires a footstool. The reason for this height is to elevate the sitters above the servants, who wield fly whisks with handles as long as broomsticks to fan the royal couple. A ghoulish detail: the head of the king's vanquished enemy hangs from a nearby tree.

Homer describes diners seated at tables, but by the sixth century
B.C.
the dining couch had arrived in Greece, probably from Mesopotamia. By all accounts Greek homes were sparsely furnished, and dining couches were used as chaises longues during the day and beds at night—all uses are depicted on Greek pottery. Couches were generally elevated, with iron, bronze, or wood frames, the mattress resting on leather or cord lacings. Although the Greeks used stools and chairs, they must have spent much time socializing in a reclined position.

Like so many Greek customs, the reclining posture migrated to Rome. The Met has an example of a Roman couch (reconstructed from fragments recovered at an imperial villa) dating from the first or second century
A.D.
Raised at each end, the couch resembles a recamier, except that the Roman idea of status required that it be elevated; it is the height of a modern kitchen counter and is mounted with the aid of a footstool. Couches were used for informal conversation, for resting, and also for dining. The arrangement in a dining room, or triclinium (literally, three couches), consisted of three wide couches, each holding three occupants, placed on three sides of a large square table (the fourth side left open to allow the servants access). The diners—only men used the triclinium—leaned on their left elbows in a semi-recumbent position, serving themselves with their right hands.