Grandma's dowry? This is the practice of the older generation, who bought the furniture for a lifetime in the year of marriage; IKEA stores? After all, this is the mainstream of today's young people, who pursue a sense of design and simple style; Moving to a new home? Furniture and appliances will always be the most expensive money in a new house.

But no one will be unfamiliar with furniture, because it is so commonplace and accompanies us day and night, so that sometimes we ignore its existence, but some people pay attention to it, and some people will just do it.

It took many years for the collecting furniture industry to seriously consider a fundamental question - what is furniture? It's so simple, so simple that no one will ask – what is furniture?

"Furniture is household utensils, mainly referring to beds, cabinets, tables, chairs, etc. Also used as furniture. This is the interpretation of the entry for "furniture" in the Xinhua Dictionary.

Obviously, this definition is very concrete, and the noun extension is directly determined in specific things such as "bed, cabinet, table, chair".

Let's take another look at Baidu Encyclopedia's explanation:

Furniture refers to the indispensable types of appliances and facilities for human beings to maintain normal life, engage in production practices and carry out social activities, and is an important foundation for establishing working and living spaces.

Obviously, this definition is more prescriptive, and from the above two points we can summarize two pieces of information -

Since it is a perceivable object, why is it often overlooked? There is only one answer, and that is the first condition listed above – people have problems.

This statement seems a bit idealistic, but it has to be admitted that people, you pay attention to furniture, it is a piece of furniture, you do not pay attention, it is an object. If you look at your life with an artistic eye, furniture is actually the most beautiful work of art.

Looking back at the golden period of furniture in China's history, we will find that all furniture can be basically classified into six categories: sitting (chairs and stools), sleeping (beds), storage (desks), storage (cabinet shelves), brackets and screens.

These six categories are the essence of generations of furniture researchers, and it covers all types of traditional Chinese furniture.

The main point I want to make is that traditional furniture has a fixed type, a fixed shape, a fixed name. After hundreds of years of accumulation, what has been determined is the style of dozens of furniture in these six categories, which is a selection of historical masterpieces handed down.

Contemporary modern furniture is the opposite direction of development. The integrated design concept makes the variety of furniture more and more, and the market has not had time to feedback after the launch, new products and noise, wave after wave.

What's more, coining a new term - limited editions. Excuse me, your furniture has not been put on the market for testing, good or bad still to be studied, you will be limited?

This is undoubtedly a speculative act on the quality of furniture and even the passing on of quality. If there is no quantity detection, long-term use and improvement, what is the classic?

Therefore, the final result is that the shape and aesthetics of furniture cannot be tested by history, and the appearance category is increasing.

Liyan? Harm?

What a person is most afraid of is to measure all things in the world by his own value judgments, and ignore the factual judgments that should be made before his own values tend to tend.

For example, I said that "the official hat chair in the early four is a classic style of traditional furniture", which is a factual judgment; I said, "This four-something official hat chair is so ugly, I don't like it," and that was a value judgment.

Time is the only test of truth. Whether the furniture is good or not, first use the furniture for three hundred years and then debate.

The actual function of furniture here is not much to say, if it is not done well, it cannot be said to be furniture. Even if it is now a table in the furniture city, even if it is bad for a long time, no matter how rough the work, the seller will mark it, this is the dining table or coffee table.

The appearance form of furniture, which is the soul of furniture, especially in our society, the importance of appearance is self-evident, good-looking faces are always strikingly similar, ugly people have their own ugliness. The same goes for furniture.

Then we can then ask: what kind of furniture is good furniture?

Unfortunately, this is not an easy question to answer. Good furniture for people to use, aesthetic experience is always similar, bad furniture, is bad strange, each has its own shortcomings.

So, I have no way to answer what is good furniture, we can think backwards, what is bad furniture?

In order to give an answer, we need to introduce the third question - from what aspects to analyze the quality of furniture? In other words, what are the elements of furniture.

In the first question, we mentioned that the service object of furniture is people, so to meet the needs of human life and production, which is undoubtedly the first element of furniture, that is, the function of furniture.

When furniture has all the conditions and elements, with the progress of social production, it will inevitably lead to the pursuit of furniture materials and become the final threshold of Seiko furniture production.

Materials, structure, workmanship, appearance form and function, these are the five most basic components of furniture. Ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, can not be excluded.

If each of the furniture elements we mentioned above is the best, then this piece of furniture is not good and difficult.

But the fact is often that many companies will now emphasize the special advantages of a piece of furniture, which is infinitely exaggerated, diverting your attention, and this time will naturally avoid other aspects of the furniture, which is a blinding method.

Next, we will talk about the use of furniture materials, now we are undoubtedly the most popular panel furniture, save wood, do not waste wood resources, easy to handle, disassemble, can be any shape of designer, these are the advantages.

But the most troublesome to modern people is also panel furniture, because of a substance called "formaldehyde".

Double-edged sword, this cannot be avoided. So many people began to pay attention to solid wood furniture, but now solid wood furniture still cannot avoid the problem of chemical glue, formaldehyde still cannot escape.

Therefore, it is necessary to understand our traditional mortise and tenon process. This is a way of linking furniture, but also a natural harmless furniture structure, this alone, the cost of this furniture is higher than the board.

Cheap things, except that there is really no benefit at all; Expensive things, except expensive, really everything is good.

The same goes for furniture.

The craftsmanship of modern furniture seems to be the emperor's new clothes, you can't see where it is at all, if there is, it is definitely a gift of great machinery.

A good example of the fact is that my grandmother's furniture was bought when I got married, and we evicted it not because the furniture was damaged and could not be used, but because I disliked its old style, so they flowed into the thrift market and still played a residual role.

The state of our new furniture now is, ten years change, ten years change. The popularity of advertisements such as bag check-in, buying a house and giving away furniture is a testimony to this, because this kind of furniture is worthless.

Therefore, the choice of furniture must be firm, the kind that does not rot for a hundred years, and it is best to inherit it if possible. Another point is that the style is not necessarily new, but it must be classic and attractive.

Finally, to add, the biggest gain of collecting Ming and Qing dynasty furniture is not learning to look at the new and old furniture, and the advantages and disadvantages of furniture. It is to nourish their aesthetic appreciation ability, judgment and identification ability of things with their high aesthetic achievements.

You can not use Ming-style furniture at home, but you must understand it, it gives you an accurate grasp of the aesthetics of furniture, the past and present, and the future.