User:Hegvald/HG

The Virgin and Child with St. Anne, Enånger Old Church, Hälsingland

Haaken Gulleson was the name of an artist active in late medieval Sweden who has signed a number of pieces of polychrome wooden sculpture preserved in or with provenance from churches in Hälsingland and other parts of Norrland. A number of other sculptures have been attributed by various art historians either to Haaken Gulleson, his workshop or his school. Nearly nothing is known about Haaken Gulleson personally, but he is likely to have had his workshop in the village of Fläcka in Enånger parish in Hälsingland. One of his works, the The Virgin and Child with St. Anne, in the Old Church of Enånger, is not only signed but dated "MVXX" (which should be understood as 1520), which places him roughly in time, but nothing more can be said about his period of activity.

Haaken Gulleson used to be regarded as the sole author of the signed works, as well as of a number of other, very similar works, and thus mainly as a sculptor. This was the view of Henrik Cornell, who published on the topic during the first half of the 20th century, and of his student Ingrid Swartling. More recent scholarship, represented by Lennart Karlsson, sees him as a polychromist -- and a highly competent one -- and as the leader of a workshop that probably used different sculptors and other specialist artisans whose names remain unknown to us. This is also in agreement with how he signed his work in at least one case, as Iaak Haaken Gulleson maler, "I, Haaken Gulleson, painter". Karlsson stresses the workshop of Haaken Gulleson as a collective responsible for the works attributed to him, but has given the individual sculptor he sees behind the most distinctive and best-known group of sculptures the conventional name G-son X:1.

Historiography and attributions

The "Throne of Mercy" trinity, in Ljusdal Church, Hälsingland

The Madonna from the Ytterlännäs Old Church, Ångermanland

The first author to mention Haaken Gulleson was the early 18th century clergyman and local historian Olof Broman (1676-1750) whose main work, Glysisvallur, remained unpublished until the early 20th century. Broman mentions a number of signed works by Haaken Gulleson that he had seen in churches in Hälsingland, several of which are no longer extant.

The main modern studies of Haaken Gulleson have been authored by Henrik Cornell, Ingrid Swartling and, most recently, Lennart Karlsson. Henrik Cornell (1890-1981), who from 1931 until 1957 held the Zorn Chair of Art History in Stockholm, was the pioneer in this field, spending a large part of his 1918 doctoral dissertation Norrlands kyrkliga konst under medeltiden ("The Ecclesiastical Art of Medieval Norrland") on a discussion of Haaken Gulleson and his work. Ingrid Swartling (1919-1972) was a student of Cornell, a keeper in the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities and author of a large number of studies of medieval Swedish churches and abbeys. Her first study of Haaken Gulleson was a licentiate dissertation published in 1956 in Gammal Hälsingekultur, the annual of the Hälsingland Society of Antiquities. She later arranged and edited a catalogue for an exhibition of the medieval artist's work at the National Museum of Antiquities in 1968. Cornell and Swartling both saw Haaken Gulleson as the sculptor and sole author of the works attributed to him and did not differentiate between different aspects of the work process; some works considered less typical or inferior were attributed to his workshop or "school", by which was meant less capable epigones.

Lennart Karlsson (born 1933), a now-retired art historian formerly in the employment of the Riksantikvarieämbetet (National Board of Antiquities) and the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities, has since 1991 published a number of smaller articles and book chapters on Haaken Gulleson, finally summarizing his work in the 2005 monograph Kretsen kring Haaken Gulleson. The title of the book ("The circle around Haaken Gulleson") reflects the difficulties Karlsson sees in pinpointing the work of the specific individual Haaken Gulleson. In order to still be able to meaningfully discuss the sculptor behind the most distinctive and best-known group of sculptures in the production previously attributed to Haaken Gulleson, Karlsson invents the conventional name G-son X:1; the work of G:son X:1 includes the Virgin and Child with St. Anne in the Old Church of Enånger, Hälsingland, which is one of the works signed by Haaken Gulleson, and the Trinity image in the Church of Ljusdal.

"I, Haaken Gulleson, painter": Signed works

Six extant works are signed by Haaken Gulleson, but many more are likely to have existed, and in the roughly 250 years since Olof Broman wrote his description of Hälsingland, its history and antiquities, much artwork has been lost that previously existed in the parish churches of the province. Broman mentions a painter named Håkan that formerly lived in Fläcka village, Enånger, and whose works he has found in many places. He gives examples of a number of signatures he has seen: Haaken god maaler ("Haaken good painter"), Haaken Gulleson maaler and Haaken Gulleson in Flegum. The first of these can not be found on any preserved sculpture today and can be presumed to belong to one of the lost pieces.

The Enånger Virgin and Child with St. Anne (depicted) is signed Iaak Haaken Gulleson maler, "I, Haaken Gulleson, painter" and dated MVCXX. This way to write the date with Roman numerals is non-standard -- it should be MDXX -- but should be understood as 1520.

Works by the sculptor G-son X:1

Karlsson suggests two reasons why Haaken Gulleson signed the sculptures of his workshop. One was that he was its head and responsible for the products. The other was possibly his "need of asserting himself".

Style

Haaken Gulleson's style is usually regarded as conservative and influenced by models much earler than the late Gothic that was dominant in more fashion-conscious centres of art production. Thanks to the absence of a strong iconoclastic movement in Sweden, a relatively large number of medieval wooden sculptures have survived in the country, compared to e.g. England. These, which still only represent a small portion of what once existed, include both Romanesque and Gothic pieces. While some of the best-known Romanesque wood sculpture in Sweden (such as the madonnas of the churches of Appuna and Viklau) have been thought to originate in or be influenced by centres on the European continent, another group of sculptures found in Norrland appear to be influenced by English sculpture, likely through Norwegian intermediaries. These include the Lillhärdal Madonna from Härjedalen, a province that belonged to Norway politically but ecclesiastically to the Swedish Archdiocese of Uppsala.

Bibliography

• [Broman, Olof], Olof Joh. Bromans Glysisvallur och öfriga skrifter rörande Helsingland, 3 vol., ed. Karl A. Hægermarck & Anders Grape. Upsala: Gestrike-Helsinge nation, 1911-1954.
• Cornell, Henrik: Norrlands kyrkliga konst under medeltiden (Norrländskt handbibliotek 8) Uppsala 1918
• Karlsson, Lennart: "Norrländsk egenart", Haaken Gulleson - och norrländsk egenart (ed. Karin Haglund). Hudiksvall: Hälsinglands museum, 2001.
• Karlsson, Lennart: Kretsen kring Haaken Gulleson. Stockholm: Carlssons
• Swartling, Ingrid: Haaken Gulleson och hans verkstad. (=Gammal Hälsingekultur 1956), Hudiksvall 1956.
• Swartling, Ingrid: Haaken Gulleson skulptör (exhibition catalogue). Stockholm: Statens historiska museum, 1968.