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FURNITURE (from " furnish," Fr. fournir)

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Originally appearing in Volume V11, Page 365 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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FURNITURE (from " furnish," Fr. fournir) , a See also:general See also:term of obscure origin, used to describe the chattels and fittings required to adapt houses and other buildings for use. See also:Wood, See also:ivory, See also:precious stones, See also:bronze, See also:silver and See also:gold have been used from the most See also:ancient times in the construction or for the decoration of furniture. The kinds of See also:objects required for furniture have varied according to the changes of See also:manners and customs, as well as with reference to the materials at the command of the workman, in different climates and countries. Of really ancient furniture there are very few surviving examples, partly by See also:reason of the perishable materials of which it was usually constructed; and partly because, however See also:great may have been the splendour of See also:Egypt, however consummate the See also:taste of See also:Greece, however luxurious the See also:life of See also:Rome, the number of See also:household appliances was very limited. The See also:chair, the See also:couch, the table, the See also:bed, were virtually the entire furniture of See also:early peoples, whatever the degree of their See also:civilization, and so they remained until the See also:close of what are known in See also:European See also:history as the See also:middle ages. During the See also:long See also:empire-strewn centuries which intervened between the See also:lapse of Egypt and the obliteration of See also:Babylon, the extinction of Greece and the dismemberment of Rome and the great awakening of the See also:Renaissance, household comfort See also:developed but little. The See also:Ptolemies were as well lodged as the Plantagenets, and peoples who spent their lives in the open See also:air, going to bed in the early See also:hours of darkness, and rising as soon as it was See also:light, needed but little household furniture. Indoor life and the growth of sedentary habits exercised a powerful See also:influence upon the development of furniture. From being splendid, or at least massive, and exceedingly sparse and costly, it gradually became light, plentiful and cheap. In the ancient civilizations, as in the periods when our own was slowly growing, household plenishings, See also:save in the rudest and most elementary forms, were the See also:privilege of the great—no See also:person of mean degree could have obtained, or would have dared to use if he could, what is now the commonest See also:object in every See also:house, the chair (q.v.). Sparse examples of the furniture of Egypt, See also:Nineveh, Greece and Rome are to be found in museums; but our See also:chief See also:sources of See also:information are mural and sepulchral paintings and sculptures. The Egyptians used wooden furniture carved and gilded, covered with splendid textiles, and supported upon the legs of See also:wild animals; they employed chests and coffers as receptacles for clothes, valuables and small objects generally.

Wild animals and beasts of the See also:

chase were carved upon the furniture of Nineveh also; the See also:lion, the See also:bull and the See also:ram were especially characteristic. The Assyrians were magnificent in their household appointments; their tables and couches were inlaid with ivory and precious metals. See also:Cedar and See also:ebony were much used by these great Eastern peoples, and it is probable that they were See also:familiar with See also:rosewood, See also:walnut and See also:teak. See also:Solomon's 364 bed was of cedar of See also:Lebanon. See also:Greek furniture was essentially See also:Oriental in See also:form; the more sumptuous varieties were of bronze, damascened with gold and silver. The See also:Romans employed Greek artists and workmen and absorbed or adapted many of their mobiliary fashions, especially in chairs and couches. The See also:Roman tables were of splendid See also:marbles or rare See also:woods. In the later ages of the empire, in Rome and afterwards in See also:Constantinople, gold and silver were plentifully used in furniture; such indeed was the abundance of these precious metals that even cooking utensils and See also:common domestic vessels were made of them. The architectural features so prominent in much of the See also:medieval furniture begin in these See also:Byzantine and See also:late Roman thrones and other seats. These features became See also:paramount as Pointed See also:architecture became general in See also:Europe, and scarcely less so during the Renaissance. Most of the medieval furniture, chests, seats, trays, &c., of See also:Italian make were richly gilt and painted. In See also:northern Europe carved See also:oak was more generally used.

See also:

State seats in feudal halls were benches with ends carved in See also:tracery, backs panelled or hung with cloths (called cloths of See also:estate), and canopies projecting above. Bedsteads were square frames, the testers of panelled wood, resting on carved posts. Chests of oak carved with panels of tracery, or of Italian See also:cypress (when they could be imported), were used to hold and to carry clothes, tapestries, &c., to distant castles and See also:manor houses; for house furniture, owing to its scarcity and cost, had to be moved from See also:place to place. Copes and other ecclesiastical See also:vestments were kept in chests with ornamental See also:lock plates and See also:iron hinges. The splendour of most feudal houses depended on pictorial tapestries which could be packed and carried from place to place. Wardrobes were rooms fitted for the reception of dresses, as well as for spices and other valuable stores. Excellent See also:carving in See also:relief was executed on caskets, which were of wood or of ivory, with See also:painting and See also:gilding, and decorated with delicate See also:hinge and lock See also:metal-See also:work. The general subjects of See also:sculpture were taken from legends of the See also:saints or from metrical romances. Renaissance See also:art made a great See also:change in architecture, and this change was exemplified in furniture. Cabinets (q.v.) and panelling took the outlines of palaces and temples. In See also:Florence, Rome, See also:Venice, See also:Milan and other capitals of See also:Italy, sumptuous cabinets, tables, chairs, chests, &c., were made to the orders of the native princes. See also:Vasari (Lives of Painters) speaks of scientific diagrams and mathematical problems illustrated in costly materials, by the best artists of the See also:day, on furniture made for the See also:Medici See also:family.

The great extent of the See also:

rule of See also:Charles V. helped to give a See also:uniform training to artists from various countries resorting to Italy, so that cabinets, &c., which were made in vast See also:numbers in See also:Spain, See also:Flanders and See also:Germany, can hardly be distinguished from those executed in Italy. See also:Francis I. and See also:Henry VIII. encouraged the revived arts in their respective dominions. Pietra dura, or inlay of hard pebbles, See also:agate, lapis lazuli, and other stones, ivory carved and inlaid, carved and gilt wood, See also:marquetry or veneering with thin woods, See also:tortoiseshell, See also:brass, &c., were used in making sumptuous furniture during the first See also:period of the Renaissance. Subjects of carving or relief were generally See also:drawn from the theological and See also:cardinal virtues, from classical See also:mythology, from the seasons, months, &c. Carved altarpieces and woodwork in churches partook of the change in See also:style. The great period of furniture in almost every See also:country was, however, unquestionably the 18th See also:century. That century saw many extravagances in this, as in other forms of art, but on the whole it saw the richest floraison of taste, and the widest sense of invention. This is the more remarkable since the furniture of the 17th century has often been criticized as heavy and coarse. The See also:criticism is only partly justified. Throughout the first three-quarters of the period between the See also:accession of See also:James I. and that of See also:Queen See also:Anne, massiveness and solidity were the distinguishing characteristics of all work. Towards the reign of James II., however, there came in one of the most pleasing and elegant styles ever known in See also:England. Nearly a See also:generation before then See also:Boulle was developing in See also:France the splendid and palatial method of inlay which, although he did not invent it,is inseparably associated with his name.

We owe it perhaps to the fact that France, as the See also:

neighbour of Italy, was touched more immediately by the Renaissance than England that the reign of heaviness came earlier to an end in that country than on the other See also:side of the Channel. But there is a heaviness which is pleasing as well as one which is forbidding, and much of the furniture made in England any See also:time after the middle of the 17th century was highly attractive. If See also:English furniture of the See also:Stuart period be not sought after to the same extent as that of a See also:hundred years later, it is yet highly prized and exceedingly decorative. Angularity it often still possessed, but generally speaking its elegance of form and richness of upholstering See also:lent it an attraction which not long before had been entirely lacking. Alike in France and in England, the most attractive achievements of the cabinetmaker belong to the 18th century—English Queen Anne and .early Georgian work is universally charming; the regency and the reigns of See also:Louis XV. and XVI. formed a period of the greatest See also:artistic splendour. The See also:inspiration of much of the work of the great English school was derived from France, although the gropings after the See also:Chinese taste and the earlier See also:Gothic manner were mainly indigenous. The See also:French styles of the century, which began with excessive flamboyance, closed before the Revolution with a chaste perfection of detail which is perhaps more delightful than anything that has ever been done in furniture. In the achievements of See also:Riesener, See also:David See also:Rontgen, Gouthiere, See also:Oeben and See also:Rousseau de la Rottiere we have the high-See also:water See also:mark" of craftsmanship. The marquetry of the period, although not always beautiful in itself, was executed with extraordinary smoothness and finish; the mounts of gilded bronze, which were the leading characteristic of most of the work of the century, were finished with a See also:minute delicacy of See also:touch which was until then unknown, and has never been rivalled since. If the periods of Francis I. and Henry II., of Louis XIV. and the regency produced much that was sumptuous and even elegant, that of Louis XVI., while men's minds were as yet undisturbed by violent See also:political See also:convulsions, stands out as, on the whole, the one consummate era in the See also:annals of furniture. Times of great achievement are almost invariably followed directly by those in which no tall thistles grow and in which every little See also:shrub is magnified to the dimensions of a See also:forest See also:tree; and the so-called " empire style " which had begun even while the last monarch of the ancien regime still reigned, lacked alike the graceful conception and the superb See also:execution of the preceding style. Heavy and usually uninspired, it was nurtured in tragedy and perished amid disaster.

Yet it is a profoundly interesting style, both by reason of the classical roots from which it sprang and the See also:

attempt, which it finally reflected, to establish new ideas in every See also:department of life. Founded upon the See also:wreck of a lingering See also:feudalism it reached back to Rome and Greece, and even to Egypt. If it is rarely charming, it is often impressive by its severity. See also:Mahogany, satinwood and other See also:rich timbers were characteristic of the style of the end of the 18th century; rosewood was most commonly employed for the choicer work of the beginning of the 19th. Bronze mounts were in high favour, although their artistic See also:character varied materially. Previously to the middle of the 18th century the only See also:cabinet-maker who gained sufficient See also:personal distinction to have had his name preserved was See also:Andre Charles Boulle; beginning with that period France and England produced many. men whose renown is hardly less than that of artists in other See also:media. With See also:Chippendale there arose a marvellously brilliant school of English cabinetmakers, in which the most outstanding names are those of See also:Sheraton, Heppelwhite, See also:Shearer and the See also:Adams. But if the school was splendid it was lamentably See also:short-lived, and the loth century produced no single name in the least worthy to be placed beside these giants. Whether, in an See also:age of machinery, much See also:room is See also:left for See also:fine individual execution may be doubted, and the manufacture of furniture now, to a great extent, takes place in large factories both in England and on the See also:continent. Owing to the necessary subdivision of labour in these establishments, each piece of furniture passes through numerous distinct workshops. The See also:master and a few artificers formerly superintended each piece of work, which, therefore, was never far removed from the designer's See also:eye. Though accomplished artists are retained by the manufacturers of See also:London, See also:Paris and other capitals, there can no longer be the same relation between the designer and his work.

Many operations in these See also:

modern factories are carried on by machinery. This, though an See also:economy of labour, entails loss of artistic effect. The See also:chisel and the See also:knife are no longer in such cases guided and controlled by the sensitive touch of the human See also:hand. A decided, if not always intelligent, effort to devise a new style in furniture began during the last few years of the 19th century, which gained the name of " fart nouveau." Its pioneers professed to be See also:free from all old traditions and to seek inspiration from nature alone. Happily nature is less forbidding than many of these interpretations of it, and much of the " new art " is a remarkable exemplification of the impossibility of altogether ignoring traditional forms. The style was not long in degenerating into extreme extravagance. Perhaps the most striking See also:con-sequence of this effort has been, especially in England, the revival of the use of oak. Lightly polished, or waxed. the cheap See also:foreign oaks often produce very agreeable results, especially when there is applied to them a See also:simple inlay of See also:boxwood and stained See also:holly, or a modern form of See also:pewter. The simplicity of these English forms is in remarkable contrast to the tortured and ungainly outlines of See also:continental seekers after a conscious and unpleasing " originality." Until a very See also:recent period the most famous collections of historic furniture were to be found in such French museums as the Louvre, See also:Cluny and the Garde Meuble. Now, however, they are rivalled, if not surpassed, by the magnificent collections of the See also:Victoria and See also:Albert Museum at See also:South See also:Kensington, and the See also:Wallace collection at See also:Hertford House, London. The latter, in See also:conjunction with the See also:Jones See also:bequest at South Kensington, forms the finest of all gatherings of French furniture of the great periods, notwithstanding that in the See also:Bureau du Roi the Louvre possesses the most magnificent individual example in existence. In See also:America there are a number of admirable collections representative of the graceful and homely " colonial furniture " made in England and the See also:United States during the Queen Anne and Georgian periods.

See also the See also:

separate articles in this work on particular forms of furniture. The literature of the subject has become very extensive, and it is needless to multiply here the references to books. See also:Perrot and Chipiez, in their great Histoire de l'art clans l'antiquite (1882 et seq.), See also:deal with ancient times, and A. de See also:Champeaux, in Le Meuble (1885), with the middle ages and later period; English furniture is admirably treated by See also:Percy Macquoid in his History of English Furniture (1905); and See also:Lady See also:Dilke's French Furniture in the 18th Century (1901), and See also:Luke See also:Vincent See also:Lockwood's Colonial Furniture in America (1901), should also be consulted. (J.

End of Article: FURNITURE (from " furnish," Fr. fournir)

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