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| photo: Le style et la matière |
Although I have not been able to sit down to write of late, readers here may remember my slightly animist tendancies in decorative arts (previous posts
here,
here,
here,
here if really you are interested!) that I labelled 'anthropomorphism.' I'm still drawn to this aspect of the objects we surround ourselves with and I get regular signals that I'm not alone in my whimsy.
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| photo: Le style et la matière |
Witness this recent advertisement in the Metro for a meeting-dating site...
where pink can meet blue and surely other color combos too.
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| bookcover illustration by |
It may strictly be a question of limbs:
the chair probably ranks number one on the list of human surrogates in the object world.
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Faudesteuil Dagobert source: Grammaire des arts décoratifs
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Le bon roi Dagobert
Avait un vieux fauteuil de fer...
The old days were not times for postural laisser-aller and sitting itself was not a priority. Even a king did not expect padded comfort for his regal posterior. The message of the throne bespoke personal power and these seats, even in more ancient and rudimentary forms, were some of the first important examples of surrogacy. The
Trone de Dagobert the oldest example of a faudesteuil, an armchair
based on the Roman curule or folding X seat. The armrests and backrest here are later in date, presumably Merovingian additions to the base. It was blocked into a stable seat in the 12th century.
'Faudesteuil' derives fromFaldestoel the German word for folding stool.From here it is easy to see the transformation to the modern French for armchair, fauteuil. (to follow up on this throne with photos and more information see here.)
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| source: Grammaire des arts décoratifs |
Charles Blanc, celebrated 19th century author of many works including the
Grammaire des decorative arts and editor-in-chief of La gazette des beaux arts,
wrote of the intricacies of seating furniture from the ployant (folding stool) and simple tabouret (stool) to the grandeur of the Louis XIV fauteuil and so on to the comfort of the Louis revivals of the late 19th century. Historic and aesthetic considerations aside, Blanc's writings show his consciouness of the societal elements represented by furniture and how dress and decorum influenced design. The caption for the illustration above reads, "who among us would dare to propose an ogival seat to a contemporary of Mme de Pompadour?"
Mais, jamais de la vie!
La comfortable and elegant bergère appeared on the scene to accomodate intimate gatherings and new ways of living.
With their constantly clever expressions and affected manners, les Precieuses of the 17th century were right to call armchairs 'vehicules de conversation' and say about them:
Voici une bérgère qui vous tend les bras.
Here is a bergère who stretches out its arms to you.
But, do be careful into whose arms you fall. Choose wisely and especially, be ever on your guard never to become a slouch in this important relationship.
The comfortable armchair known as the Voltaire was a creation of the Louis-Philippe period (1830-48) and was not contemporary with Voltaire.
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| Voltaire by Houdon |
The philosopher did however appreciate similar comfort in seating.
Blanc writes:
La vieillesse
de Voltaire nous a valu un fauteuil cher à tous ceux qui conservent l'activité de l'intelligence dans l'affaiblissement
du corps, et il est assez curieux, ce me semble, qu'un homme uniquement
occupé des choses de l'esprit en ait remontré aux ébénistes en inventant
le plus confortable des sièges.
From Voltaire’s advanced years we have gained the
benefit of an armchair valued by all those who preserve their wits despite bodily
weakening, yet it seems to me rather curious that a man solely devoted to
matters of the mind should have guided cabinet-makers on the road to inventing
the most comfortable of chairs.
The table à la Tronchin could be inclined and adjusted up and down
Mais n'est-ce pas encore
aux indications de Voltaire que nous devons la table Tronchin, imaginée par le
célèbre médecin de Genève, afin que un homme de lettres y put écrire
debout? Rien de mieux trouvé pour la santé de tous et pour l'esprit de quelques-uns,
que cette table dont le pupitre, pouvant s'élever ou s'abaisser au gré de
l'écrivain, lui permet de donner du mouvement à ces
idées, de les promener,
pour ainsi dire, dans son cabinet, comme faisait Rousseau quand il déclamait
par les chemins de son éloquence, et de revenir ensuite à sa table pour y
écrire sa phrase tout d'une haleine, sans changer d'altitude, sans avoir à
s'installer de nouveau.
And once again, was it not Voltaire’s indications
that gave rise to the Tronchin table, imagined by the famous doctor of Geneva
so the man of letters could write while standing? Nothing better has been found
for the health of all and the mind of a certain number, than this table whose writing
desk is able to be raised or lowered at the writer’s will, permitting him to
give movement to his ideas, to walk them about in his study so to speak, just as Rousseau* did when he declaimed eloquently from footpaths, then coming back to
his desk afterwards to write his sentence all in the same breath, without changing altitudes, without having to settle down again.
These days, and in such illustrous company, I'd be tempted to let our chair surrogates sit-in for us
more and actually be sat in less. And now, that is just about as much sitting as... I can stand.
Is there a table à la Tronchin suitable for computers?
*Rousseau suffered from rhumatism and was known to be a great walker,
the only way he found to calm his pain.
