Axel Herman Haig ( sv, Axel Herman Hägg); (10 November 1835 –August 23, 1921) was a Swedish-born artist, illustrator and architect. His paintings, illustrations and etchings, undertaken for himself and on behalf of many of the foremost architects of the Victorian period made him "the Piranesi of the Gothic Revival."Mordaunt Crook et al. 1984, p 13

Life

Haig was born at Katthamra farm in the parish of

Östergarn Östergarn () is a populated area, a ''socken'' (not to be confused with parish), on the Swedish island of Gotland. It comprises the same area as the administrative Östergarn District, established on 1January 2016. Geography Östergarn is sit ...

on the island of Gotland. His parents were Axel Hägg, a landowner and timber merchant, and Anna Margaretha Lindström. He was taught drawing and watercolor painting by Per Arvid Säve (1811–1887) who ran a private drawing school at

Visby Visby () is an urban area in Sweden and the seat of Gotland Municipality in Gotland County on the island of Gotland with 24,330 inhabitants . Visby is also the episcopal see for the Diocese of Visby. The Hanseatic city of Visby is arguably th ...

. Haig was apprenticed as a shipbuilder at the government dockyard at Karlskrona. In 1856 he went to

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

for a further period of training at a firm of

Clydeside Greater Glasgow is an urban settlement in Scotland consisting of all localities which are physically attached to the city of Glasgow, forming with it a single contiguous urban area (or conurbation). It does not relate to municipal government ...

shipbuilders. But his interests had turned to architecture and in 1859, he undertook a new apprenticeship as a draughtsman in the offices of the

Ecclesiastical Commissioners The Ecclesiastical Commissioners were, in England and Wales, a body corporate, whose full title was Ecclesiastical and Church Estates Commissioners for England. The commissioners were authorized to determine the distribution of revenues of the Chu ...

. After seven years there, he launched himself as an architectural artist. Design for the Summer Smoking Room at Cardiff Castle

The middle years of the nineteenth century saw an explosion in the practice of architectural competitions. The wealth generated by the empire and The Industrial Revolution created the necessary conditions for a vast expansion in civic construction. Commissions for government offices, town halls, churches for private benefactors, railway termini were all put out to tender and competing architects required draughtsmen to illustrate their plans. In 1866 Haig met architect and designer

William Burges William Burges (; 2 December 1827 – 20 April 1881) was an English architect and designer. Among the greatest of the Victorian art-architects, he sought in his work to escape from both nineteenth-century industrialisation and the Neoc ...

(1827–1881) when Burges retained him to illustrate his designs for the

Royal Courts of Justice The Royal Courts of Justice, commonly called the Law Courts, is a court building in Westminster which houses the High Court and Court of Appeal of England and Wales. The High Court also sits on circuit and in other major cities. Designed by Ge ...

in The Strand. Haig produced a series of watercolour illustrations that were "an immediate sensation." The competition's winner,

George Edmund Street George Edmund Street (20 June 1824 – 18 December 1881), also known as G. E. Street, was an English architect, born at Woodford in Essex. Stylistically, Street was a leading practitioner of the Victorian Gothic Revival. Though mainly an eccl ...

is said to have remarked, "I wouldn't mind being beaten by drawings like those." Flodakyrka

In 1875, Haig made study trips to

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

and

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

, which resulted in a multitude of drawings and watercolors of mainly medieval architecture. Haig and Burges continued in partnership until the latter's death in 1881. In that time they produced some of the most spectacular medieval visions of the Victorian Gothic Revival. Cardiff Castle,

Knightshayes Court Knightshayes Court is a Victorian country house near Tiverton, Devon, England, designed by William Burges for the Heathcoat-Amory family. Nikolaus Pevsner describes it as "an eloquent expression of High Victorian ideals in a country house o ...

, the Church of Christ the Consoler at Skelton-on-Ure, St Mary's Church, Park House, the Speech Room, Harrow School,

Castell Coch (; ) is a 19th-century Gothic Revival castle built above the village of in South Wales. The first castle on the site was built by the Normans after 1081 to protect the newly conquered town of Cardiff and control the route along the Taff G ...

Trinity College, Hartford Trinity College is a private liberal arts college in Hartford, Connecticut. Founded as Washington College in 1823, it is the second-oldest college in the state of Connecticut. Coeducational since 1969, the college enrolls 2,235 students. Trini ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...

and the designs for the re-decoration of

Saint Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Gr ...

: as Burges designed his most important commissions, so Haig drew them. "In Haig, Burges, the architect of a medieval dreamland, had found an artist worthy of his dreams." All Saints Church, Grayswood - geograph

Haig developed a second career as an etcher and his drawings and lithographs of European castles, palaces, landscapes and cathedrals became hugely popular in late-Victorian England. In a review of his work published by

RIBA The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three supp ...

in the year of his death, Maurice Adams wrote that "his architectural draughtsmanship ranks without a doubt amongst the foremost of his time and his graphic capability remains unique." Haig was mostly a resident of England, but spent the summers at the family farm on Gotland. Floda Church at

Södermanland Södermanland ( or ), locally Sörmland, sometimes referred to under its Latin form ''Sudermannia'' or ''Sudermania'', is a historical province or ''landskap'' on the south eastern coast of Sweden. It borders Östergötland, Närke, Västman ...

, Sweden was rebuilt and underwent restoration between 1885–1888 on the basis of his drawings. Haig also designed All Saints Church in Grayswood, Surrey. It was built between 1901 and 1902 in a style described variously as Surrey

Vernacular A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...

or "13th-century

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

] with Arts and Crafts movement, Arts and Crafts elements". Haig is buried in the graveyard. The church is a Grade II listed building.

References

Sources

* Armstrong, E.A, ''Axel Herman Haig and His Works'' (1905) The Fine Art Society, Ltd * Mordaunt Crook, J. and Lennox-Boyd, C, ''Axel Haig and the Victorian Vision of the Middle Ages'' (1984)

George Allen and Unwin George Allen & Unwin was a British publishing company formed in 1911 when Sir Stanley Unwin purchased a controlling interest in George Allen & Co. It went on to become one of the leading publishers of the twentieth century and to establish an ...

External links

Illustration by Axel Herman Hägg (Nationalmuseum)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Haig, Alex 1835 births 1921 deaths People from Gotland Swedish expatriates in England Swedish artists Swedish ecclesiastical architects 19th-century Swedish architects Gothic Revival architects People of the Victorian era Architects of cathedrals