Defining Country Furniture

The word country is used with its informal meaning in the expression country furniture. Country mainly defines a region and a territory that involves the existence of a nation, the second perspective defines the term as "a rural area, an area outside of cities and towns" or typical of the country, custom for the rural areas, like the country-style sausage, country music or country furniture. So, country furniture defines in a figurate way, the rural characteristic of in the furniture craft.

The Encyclopedia Britannica sustains that country furniture is "made by country craftsmen, varying from purely functional pieces made by amateurs to expertly constructed and carved work based on luxurious furniture made for the rich" and it includes it in the category of folk arts. Its design it's described as sturdy and not too often delicate, with low-relief carving, painting or turning decor. One of the most important aspects is that country furniture hasn’t changed considerably during centuries. This definition attributes country furniture to French and mostly Paris, where fashionable styles were created and then simplified, creating this style.

The country furniture uses both new and re-claimed timber, mostly pine and solid oak, which give the shabby-chic edges, soft soothing colors, roughness. Country furniture knows various traditional styles, as all countries have their own cultural customs which are reflected in the furniture craft. Among the globally popular ones are: French and British country furniture, Indian, US Western or Mexican. While Asian furniture uses exotic woods like: teak, rosewood hanum, makha, bamboo, monkey wood, root wicker rattan and rubber wood, while Mexicans and Americans stick to pine, barn and teak. In Europe, the history changed the fabric of the nowadays antiques, but they were usually heavy woods, which gave volume and sumptuousness and the Indians use the treated teak and walnut tree.

Country furniture can be divided in two groups: furniture handcraft nowadays with rural and old times influence and antiques, predominant in Asian and European country styles. The history phases affected the furniture style, as these were in strong relation with the architecture of the time.  During Baroque ages, followed by the more artistic Rocco ages, furniture was redefined with extra ornamentation, even on doors, mirrors or facades of palaces. Art Nouveau current inspired furniture to adapt vegetable forms, intensively used in the country furniture of today. The furniture began to be more stylized with the work of the architects Gaudi and Mackintosh, who made furniture as their own buildings, a variant of the futuristic art nowadays.