A more sophisticated form of chair, known as the rigid frame chair or yi, appeared sometime during the Tang dynasty (AD 618–906). It is obvious from the archeological records that the evolution from low furniture to high was a slow, progressive one. But something finally crystallized during the Tang dynasty. As the popularity of Buddhism rose, the clashes that were prevalent during the Northern Wei dynasty waned. As peace took root, people had more time to spend innovating and tweaking luxury items such as furniture.
Fig. 15 Folding horseshoe-back armchair, huanghuali, late sixteenth to early seventeenth century. There are fewer than twenty published examples of Ming folding chairs in huanghuali wood. The inset openwork panel is carved with a hornless dragon within a ruyi-shaped medallion. The central panel features the mystical beast qilin in a bed of clouds and trees. Yellow brass reinforces the joints. Collection of Dr S.Y.Yip. Photo courtesy Grace Wu Bruce.
Fig. 16 The folding chair gave rise to other forms of furniture such as the table.
Fig. 17 The rigid frame chair or yi, like this side chair with an elongated back, was developed sometime during the Tang dynasty. Photo courtesy Christopher Cooke.
The word yi, which is derived from the Chinese character “to lean,” came into use in the tenth century. From the very beginning, the purpose of the yi was to facilitate leisurely contemplation. Although it may have been partly inspired by the barbarian chair, its frame more closely resembles chairs used in Byzantine Europe. Scholars speculate that officials of the outward-looking Tang courts, inspired by Egyptian and Roman customs, simply desired a more comfortable lounge chair for the garden.
What started as an indulgence of the élite was quickly popularized. The Japanese monk Ennin, who traveled in China between AD 838 and 847, noted in his diary the use of chairs by high-level officials. It was probably not long after his visit that wealthy merchants also began commissioning them.
By the tenth century, a painting entitled “Night Revels of Han Xizai” by Gu Hong Zhong shows guests sitting upon U-shaped couch beds surrounded with decorative railings, yoke-back chairs, high recessed-leg tables and standing screens. This was the first glimpse into the evolving world of Chinese furniture that would eventually morph into the armchairs, rose chairs and side tables which became fashionable at the beginning of the Song dynasty (Figs. 16, 17). This painting is also the first pictorial evidence that high chairs and tables were used by prominent statesmen in their fashionable homes during the early Song dynasty. For the Chinese upper crust, furniture was now in vogue. It was nothing short of a domestic revolution.
The Song style was dictated by functionality. Early examples followed architectural principles based on post-and-beam construction. Stability was key, and what developed was a brilliant form of joinery known as the traditional mortise-and-tenon. This form of joinery is what distinguishes Chinese furniture from other Western precepts (Fig. 18).
Over time, however, zealous craftsmanship surpassed utilitarian intent. Woodblock prints from the eleventh century depict simple furniture showing true artistic enterprise. One basic square table has sturdy legs crafted to join the table top in a graceful arc and meet the ground as a delicate horse hoof-shaped foot.
The Song fashion was elegant but deceptively simple. Day beds and painting tables, such as the one featured in Liu Sung-nien’s painting “Preparing Tea” (Fig. 19), initially retained a box-like platform shape common during the Tang dynasty. Innovation soon crept in. Some of the basic shapes that evolved include decorative waisted tables and scepter-shaped table legs as shown in “Morning Toilette in the Women’s Quarters,” attributed to Wang Shen (AD 1036–88) (Fig. 22). Other classic elements that can be traced back to this era include the round-legged recessed-leg table, curved humpback stretchers and square feet as seen in the Qing-dynasty painting “Palace Women” (Fig. 8, and Figs. 20, 21).
Not surprisingly, interior design became a preoccupation among the arbiters of taste—the scholarly class. As Lina Lin writes in the Taipei Museum catalogue Special Exhibition of Furniture in Paintings, furniture was freely adapted and arranged for individual needs during the Song dynasty.
The literati of the Yuan (AD 1279–1368) and Ming dynasties (AD 1368–1644) continued to build on the earlier Song traditions, but during the Ming era furniture handicraft reached new heights. The establishment of the new Imperial Palace in Beijing (AD 1402–23) led to the re-establishment of imperial workshops and the flourishing of high-quality products, including the carved altar table at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Whereas the Song scholarly class paid homage to decorative lacquer and curves, puritan successors developed a more austere aesthetic. The arbiters of taste preferred clean lines and silhouettes, and placed greater emphasis on the grain patterns of hardwoods such as huanghuali, a type of tropical rosewood now extinct.
There is consensus among scholars that Chinese furniture reached its apex between the Jiajing and Kangxi periods (AD 1522–1662) when nobles sought to acquire luxury goods, including furniture, illustrated books and calligraphy. During this time, craftsmen perfected minimalism by using the least amount of material to obtain both maximum function and aesthetic pleasure. Such purity of line, however, required discipline. Furniture makers during this period adhered to rigid rules governing proportion and size. These codes were diligently recorded in the fifteenth-century text, Lu Ban Jing. The book is essentially a construction manual compiled by three government officials who were in charge of recruiting artisans for the emperor’s projects. Academics who have tried to make furniture by following the manual like a cookbook have failed. Scholars such as Craig Clunas speculate that the book is a bible, not a blueprint, reflecting the spirit with which furniture should be constructed. That said, it is clear that during various eras carpenters organized themselves into guilds. One such guild, the Sacred Society of Lu Ban, was established in the mid-1800s. Some of the best carpenters, including Huang De Ping who recently retired from Cola Ma’s Tianjin workshop, say they still follow the directives taught by their fathers and grandfathers who apprenticed under the Lu Ban guild.
Fig. 18 An original painting platform like the one depicted in “Preparing Tea” (Fig. 19) was the possible prototype of the classical tables found in paintings and wood-block prints dating to the Song dynasty. This diagram shows the evolution from Tang table to the more common scepter-shaped and cabriole-shaped legs found in the Song dynasty. Both the apron and the legs were reshaped in later centuries. The cusped openings of the Tang-style table became a simple curvilinear apron until the apron itself eventually straightened out. The ground stretchers joining the legs for stability were eventually phased out and their vestige was the scepter-shaped feet. Eventually, even the scepter design transmuted either into horse hoof feet that curve inwards or the S-shaped cabriole feet that curve outwards.
Fig. 19 “Preparing Tea.”This painting is attributed to Liu Sung-nien (AD 1174–1224). In the Tang dynasty (AD 618–906), tea drinking was popular at court, at literary gatherings and at temples. Two attendants are seen preparing tea while a monk sits at a Tang-style painting table with cusped openings, stretchers and legs slightly curved in the shape of scepters. Next to the