A chair is a seat with a backrest and armrests. Sitting on the floor in ancient times, there was no chair, and "chair" was originally a wooden name. The Book of Songs has "its chair" and "chair" is "catalpa", which is the name of a tree. According to documents, the name of the chair first appeared in the Tang Dynasty, and the image of the chair can be traced back to Hu Chuang in the north of Han and Wei Dynasties. There are two people sitting on chairs in the mural of Cave 285 in Dunhuang. There are women sitting on square stools and cross-legged stools in the murals of Cave 257. There are women sitting on round stools in the stone carving of Lianhua Cave in Longmen. These images vividly reproduce the use of chairs and stools by bureaucrats and aristocratic families in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. Although the furniture at that time had the shape of chairs and stools, people used to call it "Hu bed" because there were no chairs and stools at that time. In temples, it is often used for meditation, so it is also called a Zen bed. After the Tang Dynasty, the use of chairs gradually increased, and the name of chairs was widely used and separated from the category of beds. Therefore, when it comes to the origin of chairs and stools, we should start with Hu Chuang in the Han and Wei Dynasties.
Song. Gao Cheng's "Ji Yuan Shi" quoted the customs boy as saying: "The Emperor Gaozu was good at it, and the master of the scene was Hu's bed. This was the beginning, and today it is also the top." Book of later Han dynasty "Five Elements of Meaning": "Emperor Han Ling loves Khufu, Zhang Hu, Hu Chuang, Zuo Hu, Fan Hu ... all the nobles in Kyoto do this." These two records can prove that the ancient chairs in China appeared in the period of Emperor Han Ling (168- 189).
From Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties to Sui and Tang Dynasties, Hu beds were widely used. Rich and powerful families not only have to live in their own rooms, but also have to be taken around by attendants for temporary rest when traveling. At that time, Hu Chuang belonged to the category of high-grade furniture, and usually only the male host or VIP in the family was eligible to enjoy it. There are also many compliments and vivid descriptions among the Fang people. For example, in the Southern Dynasties, Liang Yu Jianwu's poem On Hu Chuang said:
Known as outland, it entered Beijing.
The shape of the foot is straight and the italics are flat.
In the hall, I vowed to go out to meet the guests from afar.
Under the purple pavilion, the flood is flowing and the sun is shining. What is it like?
Hu bed is also called "cross bed" and "rope bed" because of its morphological characteristics. It was called "crossing the bed" in the Sui Dynasty because Emperor Gaozu of Sui deliberately avoided the word "Hu" and the utensils involving the word "Hu" were ordered to be replaced. Song. Tao Qing says, "Hu Chuang should be moved to the customs as a reward, and put a bandage on him to sit down. His capacity will shrink for a while, and he won't weigh a few pounds. According to legend, the Ming emperor was lucky in many ways, and he was wiped out by ministers. He wanted to have a rest, but he couldn't send him away, so he had an idea. At that time, he called "sit back". At first, the Hu bed had no backrest and was shaped like Mazar-e-Mazar as seen today. Backrests began in the Tang Dynasty. This leisurely sitting method is probably a Hu bed with a backrest. Hu Chuang first appeared in the Han Dynasty, hundreds of years earlier in Bitang, so it is obviously inappropriate to say that it is the creativity of Tang Dynasty. So the creativity mentioned here should refer to the increase of backrest. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, especially in the Song Dynasty, Hu Chuang prevailed. But in the Song Dynasty, the number of people calling Hu Chuang decreased gradually, and the number of people calling him the top spot increased gradually.
Hu bed with backrest began in Tang Dynasty and Ming Dynasty, and can also be inscribed from the sundries of sacrificial vessels in Beihai altar of Jidu Temple in Tang Dynasty. This was confirmed in Yin Bei's record, which wrote: "There were ten rope beds and four chairs in it". It can be seen from this record that the name of the chair existed in the first year of Zhenyuan in Tang Dynasty. The "ten rope beds with four chairs in them" here means that four of the ten rope beds are chairs to lean on, obviously to distinguish them from the other six rope beds without backrest. It can be seen that although the name of chair has appeared, it can be a common furniture in daily life, but it is not completely divorced from the concept of bed. In the classics of the Tang Dynasty, it is still very common to call a chair a bed. Du Fu, a famous poet in the Tang Dynasty, wrote in The Boy's Journey. This four-line poem reads:
A white-faced man immediately dismounted from the street and sat on the bed.
I don't know the name. I am very generous. I pointed to the silver bottle and asked for wine.
The bed mentioned here does not reflect whether it is a chair with a backrest, but it is definitely not a bedding for sleeping.
"Chair" is also called "leaning". It originated earlier, but it doesn't mean a chair for people to sit on. Originally, it was the name of a tree, also known as "Jatropha curcas" and "watermelon". Wood can be used as furniture.
There was another explanation for the word "chair" before the Tang Dynasty, which was called "beside the car", that is, the fence of the car. Its function is to make people rely on it when riding. Later, the chair was in the form of installing a fence on a platform supported by four feet. It was inspired by the fence next to the car and was called "chair" by its name. Judging from the available data, there were quite beautiful chairs in the Tang Dynasty. For example, in Lang Yuling's Statues of Emperors in Past Dynasties, Emperor Taizong sat in a chair with four straight legs, one waist, Antoinette teeth and lines at the four corners. This kind of decoration was called "mixed double-sided line" in Ming and Qing Dynasties. On the sitting surface, four upright posts are erected at the back, two upright posts in the middle are slightly higher, arc beams are installed, the parts grown at both ends are carved into faucets, and the handrails swing forward from the rear center post to the front post through the side post. There is a gap between the armrest and the sitting surface as a mosaic ring. The end of the armrest is also carved into a faucet, which is integrated with the back and brain. The seat surface is attached with a cushion and a backrest. This should have been a very delicate chair at that time. The chairs depicted in Six Statues by Lu Lengcan in Tang Dynasty are more representative. It uses four bell pestles instead of four legs, and the two sides are connected by cross bars. The front column of the armrest and the side column of the chair are carved with lotus flowers. The armrest and the chair are arched, with both ends upturned and decorated with lotus flowers with beaded tassels hanging down. The overall shape is solemn and luxurious. The furniture inlaid with gold and jade embodies the dignity and sacredness of the monks in the temple at that time.
From the Five Dynasties to the Song Dynasty, high-standard seating was unprecedentedly popular, and the forms of chairs also increased, including armchairs, armchairs and round-backed chairs. At the same time, the shape, material and function of the chair vary according to different generations.
Furniture from the Five Dynasties to the Song Dynasty generally retained the legacy of the Tang Dynasty, but high-type furniture was more popular than before.
The use of high-type furniture has become a fashion among the people, and high-type tables and chairs are essential at home, which can be seen from the paintings at that time. For example, in Zhang Zeduan's The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival in Song Dynasty, there are all kinds of advanced furniture of Chen Fang. The round-backed armchair depicted in "Nine Old Pictures of Huichang" in the Song Dynasty is also the previous generation without varieties. In recent years, furniture models made of stones and pottery, or various furniture made of bricks or carved on the walls of tombs have also appeared in the tombs of the Song Dynasty, among which the scene of couples sitting in chairs is the most common. For example, the remains of stone chairs unearthed in Fangcheng, Henan Province, the brick-carved tables and chairs in the Song Tomb of No.7 Shizhuang, Jingxing County, Hebei Province, the tables and chairs in the mural "Sitting Opposite" of No.2 Shizhuang Tomb, and the brick-carved furniture in the Song Tomb of Jianxi, Luoyang. This shows that chairs and other high-standard seating tools are not only widely used in people's daily life, but also used as sacrificial tools.
A top chair was popular in Song Dynasty, which was higher than other chairs. Families with a little status were equipped with top chairs for the use of hosts and guests.