Shao Jin's painting of the male and female portrait axis (Ming) chair, one of the pieces of furniture that accompanies us day and night, is actually full of interest about its history.
After the advent of human beings, there was no such thing as a chair at first. In the early days, people sat on the ground and made mats out of thatch, leaves, animal skins, etc. Later, people also learned to build simple stone benches out of stone slabs.
Before the Han Dynasty, the Chinese developed their own sitting etiquette. In the beginning, people sat on the floor, and the sitting posture was mainly kneeling, that is, kneeling on the ground, sitting on the lower legs, and keeping the upper body straight (presumably the so-called "upright sitting").
This sitting position was uncomfortable for a long time, and later a mat was used. In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, people also used mats as the main seat.
Rosewood square-backed chair (Ming) changed this situation with the emergence of the "Hu bed", although the Hu bed has the word "bed", it is actually a kind of folding small bench, which was introduced to China during the time of Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty, and was only used in the north at first, and then gradually flowed into the south.
Hu bed, introduced from the Hu people in the Han Dynasty, is a sitting with hanging feet, and now it is a marching chair. The so-called bed, "Interpretation" cloud: "Bed, loading also, so self-loading also." "Guangya" cloud: "Perch, called the bed." "Loading, carrying, and perching are all used for people to sit and lie down.
Hu bed is not a bed in the modern sense, but only refers to a small Maza, after being introduced into China to distinguish it from the native couch or bed, so a "Hu" word was added, after the Sui Yang Emperor, because of his Xianbei bloodline, avoid the word "Hu", so it was later changed to "hand over the bed", "rope bed" or "cross the chair".
The Hu bed can be identified as the first and earliest piece of high-legged furniture introduced to China, which started the Chinese of the transformation from sitting in the seat to sitting with the feet down. From the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Song Dynasty, it took about 800 years to complete the change from sitting in the seat to sitting on the feet.
After the introduction of the Hu bed to China, it affected people's way of living, but the way of kneeling and sitting is still the mainstream.
The word "chair" first appeared in the Tang Dynasty, and it was recorded in the Tang Dynasty's "Jidu Temple Beihai Altar Sacrificial Vessel Miscellaneous Inscriptions": "Ten rope beds, four chairs inside", which means that four of the ten rope beds are chairs that can be relied on.
We can even see the image of two people sitting on chairs in the murals of Cave 285 in Dunhuang; The frescoes in Cave 257 show women sitting on square stools and cross-legged benches; There are women sitting on round benches in the stone carvings of Longmen Lotus Cave.
These images vividly reproduce the use of chairs and stools in the families of the nobles during the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Although the seat at that time had the shape of a chair and a stool, because there was no title for a chair or stool, people were still accustomed to call it "Hu bed", and in the temple, it was often used for sitting meditation, so it was also called a meditation bed.
After the Tang Dynasty, the use of rosewood armchairs gradually increased, and the name of the chair was also widely used, so it was separated from the category of beds. Therefore, when it comes to the origin of chairs and stools, we must start with the Hu bed that was introduced through India during the Han and Wei dynasties.
Before the Tang Dynasty, there was also an explanation of the word "chair", which was said to be "next to the car", that is, the fence of the car. Its function is that people have something to rely on when they ride in the car. Later chairs, in the form of a fence on a four-legged platform, were inspired by the fence next to the car, and the seat was called a "chair" after its name. Judging from the existing information, there were quite elaborate chairs in the Tang Dynasty.
From the fifth dynasty to the Song Dynasty, high-type seating tools were unprecedentedly popular, and the form of chairs also increased, with backrest chairs, armchairs, circle chairs, etc. At the same time, according to the different levels of dignity and inferiority, the shape, material and function of the chair are also different.
The furniture from the Five Dynasties to the Two Song Dynasties generally retains the legacy of the Tang Dynasty, but the high-style furniture is more popular than before.
The chair is very old and simple, although for many centuries, is a state of ordinary use. In the early dynastic period, the backs and tops were covered with cloth or leather and wood carvings, but the area covered was much lower than that of 21st-century chairs, sometimes only 25 centimeters above the floor. Chairs from ancient Egyptian times seem to have been greatly enriched, with old-fashioned ebony, ivory carvings, gilded wood, etc. They are covered with expensive materials, ornate patterns and hunted beasts or carved captive figures.
Generally speaking, the higher the status of the individual, the higher and more gorgeous his chair, which is a symbol of honor, so we often use "sitting on the first chair" to describe the person's high position.
The history of the chair is actually a process of cultural integration, and each dynasty will create different structures according to the aesthetics of the time, but the only thing that remains unchanged is the connotation and importance of the chair itself.
Qi Huang bench axis (modern times) I think that the biggest role of the chair is not to give myself at the moment, a place to rely on temporarily?