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In an ongoing artistic exploration, I bring photographer Engla Hägertz into imagined correspondence with other creative voices from her time. The works begin with photographs, archives, documented lives and places, while clearly distinguishing historical sources from artistic interpretation. Where the sources fall silent, fiction becomes a way of exploring questions they leave behind.

Earlier imagined dialogues have brought Engla into conversation with Hilma af Klint, the artists of the Halmstad Group, and Tyra Kleen. This time, I imagine an exchange between Engla Hägertz and Axel Munthe — two Swedes whose lives unfolded in very different places, yet whose traces open unexpected connections around seeing, remembering, creating and preserving. The intention is not to reconstruct what either person actually thought or might have said, but to use imagined correspondence as an artistic form through which documented histories can be placed in dialogue. Their paths most likely never crossed. But perhaps their worlds were not quite as distant as they first appear.

Engla Hägertz — Preserving Lives in Photographs

Engla Hägertz (1889–1977) spent much of her life as a photographer in Oskarström in Halland. From her studio, she photographed generations of people: families, children, workers, celebrations and everyday life. Over the years, these individual photographs grew into something larger — a visual memory of a community and a time.

Her work depended upon light, but also upon observation. A photographer chooses where someone stands, how the light falls, what enters the frame and what remains outside it. A photograph may appear simply to preserve a moment, yet it is always shaped by the person behind the camera.

But Engla’s creativity did not end at the edge of the photograph. She also seems to have had an instinct for shaping the places around her. The garden surrounding her photographic studio became part of the world she created, as did the garden around the house in Oskarström where she lived with her mother. Plants, paths, objects and places to pause became another way of arranging what was around her — not so unlike composing an image, but on a larger and more living scale.

Engla has also become part of my own artistic practice. Working from her photographs, places and the fragments of her story that remain, I have created visual works exploring what happens when an inherited archive is encountered from another time and through another artistic eye.
Artworks from this exploration were selected for Hallands Vårsalong 2026 and later exhibited in Oskarström, bringing the work back to the community where Engla lived and photographed generations of people.

Engla also travelled, including to Paris. While the details of that journey remain part of my ongoing exploration of her life, it offers a possible starting point for another imagined journey — one that might have continued south towards Rome and Capri, but perhaps never did.

Axel Munthe — Creating a Place from Memory

Doctor, Storyteller and Creator of San Michele

Axel Munthe (1857–1949) lived a remarkably international and often contradictory life. A Swedish physician, trained in Paris, he became closely connected with the Scandinavian artistic community there before moving south to Italy. In Rome he established a highly successful practice and became a sought-after doctor among aristocrats, diplomats and wealthy international families, while also treating poor patients and involving himself in humanitarian work.

In 1893, he became physician to Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, later Queen Victoria. Their relationship developed over almost four decades into a close friendship and bond of trust, and in the final years of her life Munthe spent considerable time at her side. 

Axel Munthe’s own family life was less settled. His first marriage, to the Swedish artist Ultima Hornberg, ended in divorce. In 1907 he married Hilda Pennington Mellor, an Englishwoman from a well-established family, twenty-five years his junior. They had two sons, Peter and Malcolm. Hilda created a cultural and creative world of her own, particularly at Hildasholm in Leksand, but the marriage gradually became distant and the couple lived largely separate lives from 1919. Despite two marriages, children and an extensive social world, Munthe spent much of his adult life essentially on his own.

At the centre of his story was Villa San Michele on Capri, which he gradually created from gardens, architectural fragments, antiquities and objects gathered over the years. It became something more than a home — an expression of Munthe’s imagination and of a life moving between medicine and art, society and solitude, Sweden and Italy. He later transformed his memories into The Story of San Michele, published in 1929 and in Swedish the following year. The book became an international bestseller, blending recollection, observation and storytelling rather than presenting his life as a straightforward autobiography.

There was another striking contradiction. Munthe had created San Michele around the Mediterranean sun and light, yet serious problems with his eyesight increasingly forced him to seek shade and retreat. In his later years he also began thinking about what should remain after him. Villa San Michele would eventually pass to the Swedish state and become a place of cultural exchange between Sweden and Italy — allowing a very personal creation to continue into lives he would never know.

Photography also had a curious presence in Munthe’s life. His years on Capri were richly documented in photographs, not least by Queen Victoria, who was herself a keen and accomplished photographer and often brought her camera on their walks. The surviving images show Munthe, his animals, friends and family, as well as the world around San Michele — creating a visual record alongside the world he later recreated in words.

This creates another intriguing connection with Engla. She spent her life creating photographs of other people’s worlds; Munthe’s own world became the subject of an extensive photographic record. One stood behind the camera, while the other repeatedly found himself within its frame.

An Imagined Meeting

Perhaps it was Boken om San Michele that finally brought their worlds together.

It is easy to imagine Engla in Oskarström in 1930, reading about the house above the Mediterranean and remembering her own journey to Paris. Perhaps she had once thought of continuing south — to Rome, or even Capri. Instead, San Michele came to her through a book. From there, an imagined conversation begins.

A photographer who preserves people in fractions of a second meets a writer who reconstructs a life through memory. One works with light while the other is slowly losing his ability to endure it. One accumulates thousands of photographs that will eventually become an archive; the other creates a house that will eventually outlive him.

Yet perhaps they shared something else as well: an instinct to shape places. Munthe created San Michele from gardens, fragments, objects, paths and views towards the Mediterranean. On a far smaller scale, Engla shaped the gardens and surroundings of the places in which she lived and worked. Both seem to have understood that creativity need not stop with an image or a book; it can extend into the spaces through which we move and the views towards which we choose to turn.

Their letters move between photography and memory, light and failing sight, portraits and relationships, truth and storytelling, the places we carry with us, and finally the question that gives this imagined exchange its name:

What remains of the lives we have seen, the places we have loved, and the things we have made?

The letters that follow are fictional, woven around real people, places and events. Where history leaves spaces, imagination allows a conversation to begin.

I. The Place I Never Reached

Engla Hägertz to Axel Munthe

Oskarström, April 1930

Dear Dr Munthe,

Your name has reached me more than once over the years, always by a different road. I first heard stories of the Swedish doctor who had lived among the Scandinavian artists in Paris, and later your name appeared again whenever people spoke of Italy. Friends travelled from Halland to Paris and further south and came home with stories of Rome, old churches, crowded streets and a light they insisted was quite unlike our own. Another correspondent of mine had once made Rome her home, and through her letters I began to imagine the city long before I had any thought of seeing it myself.

I did travel to Paris eventually, taking my camera and rather more curiosity than good sense. I remember thinking while I was there that perhaps Paris was only the beginning. Next time I would continue south. I would see Rome, and perhaps, if circumstances allowed, Capri.

There was no next time. Life has a way of quietly replacing the journeys we intend with other things that need doing, and I returned to Halland.

That may be why your book affected me as it did. I began reading about San Michele and found myself thinking not only about your house, but about that journey I never made. Through your descriptions I could almost imagine the mountain, the garden, the fragments of stone, the terraces and the sea below. It seemed less like reading about a house than following the making of a world.

My own world is considerably smaller. I have spent much of my working life in a photographic studio here in Oskarström. There is nothing grand about it. People come through the door in their Sunday clothes, or sometimes directly from work. Mothers straighten children’s collars. Husbands are told where to put their hands. Children refuse to sit still. Older people often become unexpectedly solemn when they find themselves in front of the camera.

For a little while I arrange them within the light. Then the shutter closes, the moment passes, and they leave.

Yet after all these years I sometimes have the peculiar feeling that something of them remains in the room. Perhaps it is simply because I remember them. But there are days when I wonder whether places themselves gather traces of the lives that pass through them.

Reading about San Michele made me wonder if you have ever felt the same.

You have shaped a place around the way you wished to live and see the world. I have spent my life shaping a much smaller room around the requirements of light and people. They are hardly comparable, and yet I wonder whether the question might be the same: do we make the places in which we live and work, or do they, slowly and without our noticing, make something of us?

I hope you will forgive a letter from a stranger in Halland. Your book has made a distant place feel unexpectedly near.

I never came to San Michele. And now San Michele has come to me.

With warm greetings from Oskarström,

Engla Hägertz

P.S. I have enclosed a photograph of my studio. It is not one of my portraits. I thought you might prefer to see the room in which they are made. The light was coming through the window when I took it, and that seemed reason enough.

Axel Munthe to Engla Hägertz

Anacapri, May 1930

Dear Miss Hägertz,

Your photograph has been standing beside me for several days, and I have looked at it often enough that your studio in Oskarström has begun to feel rather less distant than it has any right to.

You apologise for sending me a room instead of a portrait. You should not. Rooms often tell us considerably more about people than portraits do. A person knows when he is being looked at and immediately begins, consciously or otherwise, to arrange himself for the occasion. A room is less careful about the impression it makes.

There is something in your studio that I recognise, although it is certainly not the light. The light of Capri would probably terrify your photographic plates. What I recognise is the sense of waiting. A room that has received many people acquires it, I think. It waits for the next voice, the next footstep, the next person to sit in the chair.

San Michele grew in much the same way, although I cannot claim to have built it according to any sensible plan. I have never had much faith in sensible plans. A column appeared where a column seemed to belong. A fragment of marble demanded a wall around it. A path followed the mountain until the mountain decided otherwise.

From the beginning I knew more clearly how I wanted the place to feel than what form it should finally take. I wanted my home to be open to the sun and the wind and the voices of the sea, like a Greek temple — and light, light, light everywhere.

I could never have enough of it. My eyes have since taken a rather different view of the matter. Perhaps that is one of life’s little jokes: we spend years pursuing something only to discover that we cannot possess it indefinitely.

You ask whether places remember. I do not know whether they remember as we do, but I am certain that they retain something. A stone becomes smooth where the same hand has rested on it for years. A chair remains in the place where someone preferred to sit. A tree outlives the person who planted it. Even silence can seem different when it belongs to a room in which a familiar voice is no longer heard.

You must know this better than most. You have watched thousands of people step before your camera and then disappear again into their lives. What remains with you is a fraction of a second in which they stood still.

But perhaps you have the matter backwards when you say that they leave something behind in your studio. Perhaps you leave something with them as well.

For that fraction of a second, you ask a person to stop being carried along by time. You ask them to stand still and allow themselves to be seen. Years later, when the clothes have gone out of fashion, the children have grown old and some of those faces have disappeared altogether, your photograph will still say: this person stood here. This light once fell upon this face. That seems to me no small thing.

You write that you once meant to continue from Paris to Rome and perhaps Capri. Do not regret the journey too much. There are many ways of arriving at a place, and sometimes imagination gets there long before we do.

Besides, you have sent me Halland through a window. It seems only fair that I send you Capri in return.

Yours sincerely,

Axel Munthe

P.S. I am sending you two photographs. The first shows something of San Michele and the sea beyond. The second is of my old Sphinx looking out over the Mediterranean. She has been staring towards the horizon for far longer than either of us has been looking at anything. I sometimes suspect she understands more about time than I do.

II. The Light We See By

Engla Hägertz → Axel Munthe

Oskarström, September 1931

Dear Dr Munthe,

Your photographs have remained in my studio since your letter arrived last year. The Sphinx has found a place on a shelf among boxes of plates and old portraits, where she looks rather grandly out of place. Occasionally someone notices her and asks where she is, and when I say Capri there is usually a small pause, as though I have named somewhere belonging as much to imagination as to geography.

I have often thought about something you wrote in your letter. You said that you had wanted light everywhere at San Michele, and then added that your eyes had since taken a different view of the matter. Perhaps I noticed the sentence because light is so much a part of my working life that I rarely think of it separately from photography itself. When I enter the studio in the morning, I look first towards the windows. Before anyone has arrived, the light has already told me something about the photographs I shall be able to make that day.

There are mornings when it seems almost willing. A person can sit down and the light finds the face without much help from me. At other times I move chairs and curtains and ask people to turn slightly this way or that. They generally imagine I am arranging them, when in fact I am often arranging the light around them.

When I was younger, I think I believed that more light must always mean that one could see more clearly. Photography taught me otherwise. Too much light can remove what one wishes to see almost as completely as darkness can conceal it. A face needs its shadows. Without them the features flatten and something of the person seems to disappear.

Last winter I photographed a woman who had come to my atelier. She complained that the corner where I had placed her was too dark and asked why I did not move her nearer the window. I did as she wished, but when I developed the plate I preferred the first exposure. In the brighter photograph I could see more of her face, certainly, but somehow I could see less of her. I thought of your letter.

It made me wonder what it must be like to have spent so much of one’s life seeking light and then find that one’s own eyes can no longer welcome it. Has it changed the way you see, not merely in the physical sense, but in the way you notice and remember things?

Photography gives us a peculiar confidence in the visible. I can take out a plate made twenty years ago and find a face preserved with astonishing precision, and yet realise that I have completely forgotten the person’s voice. At other times I remember a voice, a laugh or the way someone entered the room, although I can no longer see the face clearly in my mind.

Perhaps what we see and what we remember have less to do with one another than I once thought.

With warm greetings from Oskarström,

Engla Hägertz

P.S. I have enclosed the first photograph of the woman I mentioned, the one she thought too dark. I do not believe she ever saw this version. I gave her the brighter one she preferred.

Axel Munthe → Engla Hägertz

Torre di Materita, October 1931

Dear Miss Hägertz,

Your photograph reached me safely, and I think you were right to prefer it. I know nothing about the technical requirements of photography, but the woman appears entirely at ease in her shadows. Had you placed her any nearer the window, I suspect she might have become less interesting, although perhaps she would have been more satisfied.

Your question about my eyes is more difficult to answer. You ask what happens when a man who has spent much of his life seeking light discovers that light has become his enemy. For a long time my answer would simply have been that he becomes extremely bad-tempered.

I built San Michele for the sun. I wanted it everywhere: across the loggia in the morning, on the white walls, between the columns, upon the garden and the sea. I had lived through enough northern winters and enough dark rooms occupied by sick people to know precisely what I thought paradise should contain, and a great deal of sunlight was part of the arrangement. I did not consult my eyes on the matter. They eventually protested.

That is one reason I spend so much time here at the Torre di Materita. The old walls are kinder, and I can withdraw when the brightness becomes too much. At first I resented every limitation. I still do, if I am to be truthful. We should be suspicious of people who convert every misfortune into wisdom. I would willingly surrender several philosophical insights in exchange for better eyesight.

Yet I have discovered that I know the island differently now. There was a time when I walked through San Michele and took in the whole spectacle at once: the white walls, the columns, Monte Solaro above me, the blue expanse below and some dog asleep where it had been expressly forbidden to sleep. Now the world often arrives in smaller pieces. I recognise where I am from the sound beneath my feet, from the change in the wind as one approaches the edge of the garden, from the scent of a tree before I can distinguish its branches. Memory does the rest, although it is an unreliable assistant.

You are right about voices. There are people whose faces I can no longer summon properly, but whose voices return without invitation. A sentence spoken forty years ago in Paris can suddenly become clearer than something said to me yesterday. I remember footsteps on stairs, a particular laugh, the sound of a carriage outside a window. None of these things would have appeared in a photograph, and yet they have survived.

This is why I am not sure that memory resembles photography at all. Your camera records what stood before it at a particular instant. Memory is far less disciplined. It keeps what it pleases, alters what it dislikes, and sometimes returns to us something we had no idea we had preserved.

You wrote that a face needs its shadows. I think perhaps a life does too. If everything remained equally illuminated, we should be overwhelmed by it.

Yours sincerely,

Axel Munthe

P.S. Since you sent me one of your subjects, I am sending you one of Queen Victoria’s. It’s some older photographs she made of me at San Michele. She was an accomplished photographer and knew the place well enough not to be impressed by its owner. You may find it interesting to see what happens when the doctor is made to stand on the other side of the lens.

III. The Distance Inside a Portrait

Engla Hägertz → Axel Munthe

Oskarström, February 1934

Dear Dr Munthe,

I have kept Victoria’s photograph beside the Sphinx, and over time I have become almost as interested in the person behind the camera as in the man standing before it. Had you not told me who made the photograph, I think I would still have guessed that the photographer knew you.

There is a difference when we photograph someone familiar to us. Most people who enter my studio are strangers. I have only a short while to observe them before I am expected to make a picture that they and their families may keep for decades. I have learned to use the moments before the photograph almost as much as the exposure itself. While I prepare the plate or move a chair, people forget for a moment that they are being watched. A husband turns towards his wife. A mother reaches automatically for her child’s collar. Someone who has been sitting stiffly suddenly laughs.

Those small movements often tell me more than the pose they have carefully prepared.

A family came to me last winter: a mother and father with their children, the youngest still small enough to be held. It took some time to arrange them. One child shifted in her chair, another stared solemnly at the camera, while the little ones seemed determined not to sit as I had intended. I kept moving them by inches — a shoulder this way, a chair that way — trying to make the group settle into a pleasing order. Then I stopped.

When I developed the plate, I realised that what interested me was not the order at all. It was the small differences: the child clasping her hands, the boy leaning slightly towards his sister, the baby resting against his mother, the father holding the youngest close.

Years from now, they may not remember the afternoon or why they came to my studio. But perhaps they will recognise these gestures. A photograph remembers things we do not yet know we will forget.

Your photograph made me think about this because you do not seem to be presenting yourself to Victoria’s camera. You simply appear to inhabit the place. Perhaps someone who knows us well can photograph what a stranger cannot because there is less need to explain who we are.

But family photographs have also taught me that physical closeness can be deceptive. I have photographed husbands and wives whose shoulders touched and yet who seemed separated by a great distance. I have seen children lean unconsciously towards one parent rather than another. None of this tells me what their lives are actually like, and I would never pretend that it does. The camera is not a judge. But it notices things.

I wonder whether medicine taught you something similar. You must have met people in circumstances in which they could no longer maintain the version of themselves they ordinarily presented to the world. Did you come to believe that there is a truer person beneath the social one, or did you find that we simply contain many different selves?

With affection from Halland,

Engla Hägertz

Axel Munthe → Engla Hägertz

Torre di Materita, April 1934

Dear Engla,

Your family portrait interested me more than it should have. I could see the whole scene while reading your description: the children shifting and fidgeting, the parents trying to keep the youngest ones still, and you behind the camera moving a shoulder here, a chair there, searching for order. And then you stopped.

You chose wisely. The small gestures you allowed to remain may one day matter far more than the symmetry of the group.

Doctors and photographers share the peculiar privilege of seeing people when they are not entirely prepared to be seen. Your advantage is that they generally arrive wearing their best clothes. Mine have often been deprived of both their clothes and their dignity before our acquaintance has properly begun.

I once believed, as young doctors often do, that illness stripped away the superficial person and revealed the true one beneath. I no longer think it is so simple. I have seen men who were courageous in public become terrified when told they were ill, and women considered timid by everyone around them show astonishing calm when someone they loved was dying. I have known people capable of great kindness towards strangers who made life very difficult for those closest to them. I have known the reverse as well. Which was the real person? I would now say all of them.

Perhaps this is one reason I have become wary of portraits that appear to explain too much. A human being is not a single expression that the clever photographer merely has to discover. We change according to whom we are with, what we fear, what we hope for and what we believe is expected of us.

Your family photograph is particularly interesting because at first it appears to tell a very simple story. Here is a family. They have dressed carefully, gathered together and agreed, for the duration of your exposure, to inhabit the same small rectangle. Anyone looking at it today probably knows who everyone is and understands the relationships without explanation.

But imagine the same photograph found in a drawer fifty years from now. Someone will turn it over hoping for names. They will wonder about the grandmother’s hand, why one child looks towards the father while another looks away, whether the young couple were happy, and what became of them all. The photograph will contain all those people and none of the answers.

Your letter also made me look through some family photographs of my own. This was not an entirely comfortable exercise. Families do not remain conveniently arranged as photographers place them. Children grow up, husbands and wives discover distances no camera could have measured, and people who once occupied the centre of our lives move towards its edges while others unexpectedly take their place.

I found one photograph that I thought might interest you. It was taken at Hildasholm in Sweden. Hilda is there, and our sons Peter and Malcolm, and I am there too. We are together in the picture, which is true. But, as you wrote, a photograph can place people very close together without telling us how far apart their lives may have travelled.

I do not think that makes the photograph false. Perhaps it simply reminds us that a photograph can only tell the truth about one moment at a time.

Yours,

Axel Munthe

P.S. You have now seen me through Victoria’s eyes and through the eyes of a family camera. I am beginning to feel dangerously over-exposed.

IV. The Truth We Arrange

Engla Hägertz → Axel Munthe

Oskarström, November 1937

Dear Axel,

Your family photograph has been in my collection for several years now, and I thought of it recently while going through some of my older plates. I have begun trying to bring a little order to them, although every attempt seems to create two new piles from the one I intended to remove. There are thousands of faces.

Some I recognise immediately. Others require a name written on an envelope or a note in an old book before the person returns to me. There are also photographs whose circumstances I remember more clearly than the people themselves. I know that it was raining that afternoon, or that someone’s horse was tied outside, or that Anna was helping me in the studio, yet the name of the person sitting before the camera has vanished completely.

Looking through so many photographs has made me increasingly aware of how much I chose without thinking of it as choosing. I decided where the edge of the picture would fall, who would stand beside whom, which chair would be used and when everyone had become still enough for the exposure. If a room was untidy, I moved the untidiness beyond the frame. If someone blinked, I made another plate. If two photographs were possible, I gave the family the one I thought better. None of this troubled me when I was younger. It was simply photography. Now I sometimes wonder about it.

I have also returned to your book, and perhaps this is why these thoughts have come together. When I first read The Story of San Michele, I imagined I was being shown your life much as someone might open an album and explain the photographs one by one. Reading it again, I notice something else. You move between memory, story, dream and recollection with a freedom my camera does not possess. At times I find myself wondering not whether something happened precisely as you describe it, but why this is the way you chose to remember it.

I hope you will not think the question impertinent. I mean it seriously, because I have begun to suspect that photographers and writers may be doing something more similar than I once believed.

I arrange people inside a frame. You arrange memories inside a story. Neither of us can include everything. Does choosing what to leave out make what remains less true?

Yours affectionately,

Engla Hägertz

Axel Munthe → Engla Hägertz

Torre di Materita, January 1938

Dear Engla,

Your question is not impertinent. It is inconvenient, which is much better. I have looked at the two photographs you sent. Had you enclosed only one of them, I should have accepted it without question as the image of that person at that moment. Because you sent both, I find myself moving between them and wondering which is more truthful. In one the expression is more open; in the other the person seems withdrawn. They were made within minutes of one another, and presumably neither is false. That should already tell us something about truth.

When I began writing about San Michele, I was not sitting before a ledger with the intention of producing evidence. Much of what I wrote came back to me across a great distance of time. Paris belonged to another man, although that man happened to have my name. Rome had changed, Capri had changed, and I had changed most of all. People who had once been alive in my memories were now dead, and conversations returned to me without any guarantee that the words had been spoken exactly as I remembered them.

I could have refused to write anything I could not prove. The result might have been more accurate and considerably less true to the life I remembered.

Life itself is a great storyteller, Engla. Memory merely continues the work. It compresses years, enlarges an afternoon, preserves one conversation and discards a hundred others. We do not remember our lives evenly. By the time the writer takes up his pen, the first editing has already been done for him.

This does not mean that facts are unimportant. A writer who deliberately deceives his reader is merely a liar with good stationery. But perhaps your camera is more honest about its limitations than memory is. The frame is visible. Everyone understands that the world continues beyond its edges. Nobody looks at one of your photographs and assumes that nothing existed outside it. A book hides its frame more successfully.

Capri has taught me something about this as well. Long before you or I were born, Tiberius, the Roman emperor who spent the final decade of his reign on Capri, looked out over this same island while governing his vast empire from here. His villas became ruins, his life became history and legend, and fragments of the Roman world still emerge from the earth. At San Michele there is an ancient marble head which we call Tiberius, although there has been disagreement over whose face it actually represents.

I rather like the uncertainty. The man has disappeared, the empire has disappeared, even the certainty of whose face we are looking at has disappeared — and still the marble remains.

Perhaps places are always being made in this way. One person leaves something behind without knowing who will find it. Another discovers it, gives it a new place and, inevitably, a new story. San Michele became such an accumulation for me: fragments, statues, columns, memories, people and animals gathered over many years until I could no longer say precisely where the place ended and my own story of it began.

Perhaps your photographs will experience something similar. Today you know the names of the people before your camera and something of the circumstances that brought them there. One day someone may find one of those photographs without knowing anything about the person in it. The clothes will belong to another age, the house may have disappeared and even the name may be lost. Yet the face will still be there.

Would that make the photograph less true? I don’t think so. It would simply have become part of another story.

You ask whether choosing what to leave out makes what remains less true. I think it depends upon what we are trying to preserve. Perhaps neither the photographer nor the writer can preserve a life. We can only leave fragments from which someone else may one day imagine the whole.

Your two photographs have convinced me of one thing at least. Had you made a third, I should now have three truths to worry about instead of two.

Yours,

Axel Munthe

Enclosed: A photograph of the ancient Roman marble portrait at San Michele, traditionally associated with Tiberius — a face surviving long after certainty about the person behind it has begun to fade.

V. The Places We Carry

Engla Hägertz → Axel Munthe

Oskarström, February 1944

Dear Axel,

News travels strangely in these years, sometimes quickly and sometimes not at all, and I heard only some time after the event that you had left Capri and returned to Sweden. I have thought several times of writing, but I was uncertain where a letter would find you.

I cannot imagine San Michele without you, although of course this is foolish, since I have never seen San Michele with you either. Perhaps that is the peculiar consequence of having known a place first through another person’s words. In my mind you and the island became attached to one another long ago.

I remembered what you wrote in your first letter to me, that there are many ways of arriving at a place. You were consoling me then for never having continued my journey south from Paris. Now I find myself wondering about the opposite journey. What happens when one must leave a place one has spent half a lifetime making one’s own?

There is another reason I have been thinking about places. Some years ago I was invited to spend more time at Klipperhus in Tylösand, a house belonging to my family, looking out towards the Kattegat. I found myself doing there what I had done, almost without thinking, around my studio and our house in Oskarström: moving things, planting, making small places to sit or pause, noticing where the light fell and where the eye travelled.

It made me understand your San Michele a little differently. I do not mean to compare my modest arrangements with what you created on Capri, but I began to recognise the pleasure of allowing a place to emerge slowly around you. A path changes because one repeatedly chooses to walk another way. A plant is moved because the evening light catches it better elsewhere. A chair finds the place from which the eye naturally travels towards the horizon.

Klipperhus looks out over water too, although the Kattegat would object strongly to being compared with the Mediterranean. The wind is sharper, the colours quieter, and there are days when sea and sky seem made from almost the same grey material. Yet I have discovered that the places we return to repeatedly acquire a kind of inner geography. One knows where the evening light will fall, which path holds water after rain, where the first spring flowers appear and from which place the horizon looks widest.

Perhaps this is another form of image-making, only one that we enter rather than look at.

I wonder whether you still walk through San Michele in that way. Perhaps when we have known a place long enough, leaving it does not mean that we cease to inhabit it.

I am sending you a photograph of our sea. Many years ago I sent a similar view to a friend who was thinking about Paris. I wrote then that I did not know whether the sea in the photograph was a beginning or an end. I was younger and apparently more inclined to make mysteries of such things.

Now I think perhaps a horizon can be both.

With affection,

Engla Hägertz

Axel Munthe → Engla Hägertz

Stockholm, March 1944

Dear Engla,

Your Halland sea has reached me in Stockholm, where it has been placed where I can see it from my chair. I am grateful for it, although you are correct that the Mediterranean would regard the comparison as an insult.

I left Capri last June. Writing that sentence still feels peculiar.

For more than fifty years I had been arriving at and departing from that island, sometimes for months, sometimes for longer, always with the assumption that I would return. Even when I lived elsewhere, Capri remained somewhere ahead of me. There would be another crossing, another climb up to Anacapri, another morning when the sea appeared between the columns. This time I knew it might be different.

The war has made departures commonplace, and mine is hardly among its great tragedies. I have lived longer than most men have any right to expect and have been fortunate beyond reason. Yet age does not make leaving easier. It merely gives one more things from which to depart.

You ask whether I still walk through San Michele. Yes. But not in the way you mean.

I can begin at the entrance and make my way through the house without moving from this room. I know where the light changes. I know where the dogs would stop. I know the turn towards the chapel and the place from which the sea suddenly opens below. I can go on to Materita and hear the wind against the Torre.

Whether I remember all of it correctly no longer seems particularly important.

Your photograph helped me understand something. I have never stood on that Halland shore, yet after all these years of your letters I recognise something of it. Not the landscape itself, but the way you have looked at it.

Perhaps this is one of the things photographs can do that we have not spoken about before. They do not merely preserve a place for the person who has left it. They can give some part of that place to someone who has never been there.

You never came to Capri, Engla. Yet I suspect you know something of my island. And now I know something of your sea.

Yours,

Axel Munthe

VI. What We Leave Behind

Engla Hägertz → Axel Munthe

Oskarström, January 1948

Dear Axel,

I have been sorting photographs again. You would think that after all these years I should have learned not to begin such a task in winter, when there is too much darkness and therefore too much time to continue. The difficulty is no longer simply the number of plates. It is the names.

There are faces I once knew perfectly well whose names now escape me. Some can be recovered by asking someone older in the village, but there are fewer people left to ask. Occasionally a younger person comes to the studio and recognises a grandfather or an aunt in a photograph I had almost given up identifying. At such moments the picture seems to wake again. But I have begun to wonder what happens when no one recognises the face. Does the photograph then cease to be a memory and become something else?

I used to think my work was for the people who came to the studio. A family wanted a portrait; I made it; they took it home. It was a straightforward transaction. Only much later did I understand that the photographs were quietly becoming a record of a place and of people who had lived here.

The factory worker in his best jacket, the young woman before her marriage, the child who would later leave Oskarström, the old couple who had perhaps never before been photographed — none of us thought of history when the shutter closed. We were simply making photographs.

I have heard that you have been thinking about the future of San Michele. It made me think of our first letters, when I asked whether a place could gather the lives that passed through it. Perhaps I should now ask the opposite question. What happens when the person who gathered them is no longer there?

I have my plates and negatives. You have San Michele. Both will outlive us if someone chooses to care for them, although I imagine your marble will prove more durable than my glass. Does it matter who sees them next?

With affection,

EEngla Hägertz

P.S. I am sending you an old glass plate. It is not one of my finest photographs, and that is partly why I chose it. I no longer know the name of the person in it. Still, someone stood before my camera that day and trusted me to make an image. It seems wrong that the disappearance of a name should make the face unimportant.

Axel Munthe → Engla Hägertz

Stockholm, February 1948

Dear Engla,

Your glass plate arrived intact, which at our age is more than can always be said of the correspondents. I have held it carefully to the window.

I do not know the persons either, of course. I do not know whether the face belongs to someone who lived a long life or a short one, whether the person remained in Halland or travelled far from it, whether there were children, disappointments, happiness, quarrels, ordinary Tuesdays. Almost everything that once surrounded that face has disappeared. And yet the face remains.

I think you are wrong to worry that the photograph has ceased to be a memory simply because the name is gone. Perhaps it has ceased to be someone’s memory and has become part of something larger.

I have been thinking a great deal about San Michele and what will happen to it. At ninety, even an optimist must concede that certain arrangements should not be postponed indefinitely.

When I began building there, I thought very little about posterity. I was trying to make a place in which I wanted to live. Stones were moved because I wanted them moved. Trees were planted because I wanted shade. The Sphinx was given her horizon because I could think of nowhere better for her to look.

The house itself was small and the rooms were few, but there were terraces from which one could see the sun, the sea and the clouds. I came to think that the soul needed more space than the body.

Perhaps that is also why I like the thought of San Michele continuing without me. I have decided that it should go to Sweden after my death and remain a place where others may come — young people especially, artists, writers, scholars and those whose work might benefit from Italy and from the strange freedom that can come from being temporarily removed from one’s ordinary surroundings.

I like the thought that people whose names I shall never know may sit beneath those trees.

Yours affectionately,

Axel Munthe

P.S. I send you the Sphinx once more. You have had one photograph of her for nearly eighteen years, but I think she means something different now. She is still looking towards the same horizon. We are the ones who have changed.

Epilogue — What Remains

Engla Hägertz and Axel Munthe most likely never wrote to one another. Yet the traces they left behind make an imagined conversation possible.

Engla’s photographs preserve thousands of moments from lives lived largely outside history books. Munthe left photographs too—not primarily taken by him, but of the world around him—as well as his writing and Villa San Michele itself: a place assembled from gardens, objects, memories and fragments of much older lives.

Both also shaped places around them. Engla did so first around her photographic studio and home in Oskarström, and later at Klipperhus in Tylösand, looking out across the Kattegat. Munthe did so on a far grander scale at San Michele, looking across the Mediterranean. In both, there was an attention to light, nature, views and the experience of being within a place.

Today, people neither Engla nor Axel could have imagined continue to encounter what they left behind. We look into faces Engla photographed without always knowing their names. We walk through Munthe’s gardens among fragments whose original owners disappeared centuries before him.

Perhaps that is where this imagined correspondence finally comes to rest.

We cannot know what of our lives will remain, or what stories others will make from the fragments. We can only leave something for them to find.

A Note on the Imagined Correspondence

The letters in What Remains are fictional. Engla Hägertz and Axel Munthe were real people, and the correspondence has been woven around documented aspects of their lives, places and times, but there is no known evidence that they met or corresponded.

Some words and ideas attributed to Munthe draw directly on his own writing, including his reflections on light, San Michele and the relationship between body, soul and place. Historical events and people appearing in the letters — including Queen Victoria, Hilda Pennington Mellor, Tiberius, Villa San Michele and Torre di Materita — are grounded in historical sources. The conversations between Engla and Axel, however, belong to imagination.

Where history leaves spaces, this project asks what might become visible if we allow two lives to meet there.

Selected References & Further Reading

Axel Munthe and Villa San Michele
Villa San Michele — official history, Munthe, the house, collections and archives:
https://www.villasanmichele.eu/

Villa San Michele — Axel Munthe:
https://www.villasanmichele.eu/munthe

Villa San Michele — The Story of San Michele:
https://www.villasanmichele.eu/book

Villa San Michele — historical photographs, including Munthe, his family, animals, friends and life on Capri:
https://www.villasanmichele.eu/historicphotos

Villa San Michele — collections, including the ancient Roman portrait associated with Emperor Tiberius:
https://www.villasanmichele.eu/collection

Munthe in his own words
San Micheles Vänner — selected quotations from Axel Munthe, including his words on light, San Michele and the need of the soul for space:
https://sanmichelesvanner.org/website/citat/

Axel Munthe, The Story of San Michele, 1929 / Boken om San Michele, 1930.

Biography and historical background
Svenskt biografiskt lexikon — Axel Munthe, detailed biographical entry covering Paris, Rome, Capri, Queen Victoria, his marriages and later life:
https://sok.riksarkivet.se/sbl/Presentation.aspx?id=8548

Bengt Jangfeldt, En osalig ande: berättelsen om Axel Munthe.

Bengt Jangfeldt, Munthes Capri: en bildberättelse — particularly relevant to the photographic world surrounding Munthe and San Michele.

Hilda Munthe and Hildasholm
Hildasholm — the house, gardens and history of Hilda Pennington Mellor Munthe and her family:
https://hildasholm.org/

Photography around Munthe
Tekniska museet / Wikimedia Commons — historical photographs of Axel Munthe at Villa San Michele taken by Crown Princess Victoria, later Queen Victoria:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Axel_Munthe

Fondazione Primoli — photographic archive, an important source for the photographic world around Giuseppe Primoli and the international cultural circles of Rome and Capri:
https://archivio.fondazioneprimoli.it/archivio/fotografico

https://slakthistoria.se/livet-forr/livsode/axel-munthe

Engla Hägertz
Family photographs, archival material and personal family history concerning Engla Hägertz have informed the Engla side of this artistic exploration. Her journeys, photographic practice and the places she shaped in Oskarström and Tylösand remain part of my continuing exploration of her life and work.

Engla Hägertz

Engla Hägertz From Treshold to Horizon

Previous Imagined Letter Exchanges with Engla

About Novisali 

Novisali, (alias Liselotte Engstam), is besides her roles as professional board member and advisor, a multi-media artist, with a curious, explorative mind and an ambition to learn and extend art experiences to current and new audiences using both traditional and new digital mediums. More information and exhibitions can be found via Novisali.com

This blog post was originally shared at www.digoshen.com, and is also shared at the blog of www.liselotteengstam.com, with the artist name Novisali.

The post What Remains first appeared on Novisali.

As summer reaches its peak and darkness barely touches the Nordic sky, people across Sweden gather around flower-covered maypoles, wearing wreaths of wildflowers and sharing meals with family and friends. For many Swedes, Midsummer is the most beloved celebration of the year.

Yet behind the strawberries, dancing, and festive gatherings lies a much older story—one woven from ancient seasonal rituals, folk beliefs, and a deep connection to nature.

A Celebration Rooted in the Rhythm of Nature

Midsummer is celebrated close to the summer solstice, when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky and daylight is at its longest. Long before modern Sweden existed, people across Northern Europe marked this turning point of the year.

For agricultural communities, this was a moment of profound significance. The fields had been planted, crops were growing, and the promise of harvest lay ahead. The abundance of light, warmth, and greenery symbolized life, fertility, and hope.

When Christianity spread through Scandinavia, the celebration became associated with St. John the Baptist’s Day on June 24. Yet many older customs and beliefs survived, blending seamlessly into the newer traditions.

The Maypole – A Symbol of Life and Renewal

The Swedish midsummer pole, decorated with birch leaves and flowers, has become one of the country’s most recognizable symbols.

Traditionally raised in village squares and open fields, the maypole served as the center of community celebrations. People gathered around it to sing, dance, and celebrate the height of summer.

The greenery covering the pole represented nature’s vitality and the powerful growth of the season. Decorating homes, barns, and gathering places with fresh branches and flowers reflected a belief in the renewing forces of nature and humanity’s connection to them.

When the Boundary Between Worlds Grew Thin

According to Nordic folklore, Midsummer Eve was one of the most magical nights of the year.

People believed that during this night the boundary between the human world and the unseen world became unusually thin. Nature itself was thought to be filled with extraordinary powers, making it a perfect time for divination, healing, and rituals intended to reveal the future.

Three questions occupied many people during Midsummer:

• Who would marry?
• Who would die?
• What would next year’s harvest bring?

As a result, Midsummer became associated with dreams, omens, and magical practices designed to uncover hidden knowledge.

Seven Flowers Beneath the Pillow

Perhaps the best-known Midsummer tradition still practiced today is the custom of picking seven different wildflowers and placing them beneath one’s pillow.

According to tradition, the person would then dream of their future spouse.

In older versions of the ritual, the flowers had to be gathered in complete silence. Some traditions also required jumping over seven fences while collecting them. The silence and the crossing of boundaries symbolized a temporary step out of ordinary life and into the realm of magic.

Whether or not future partners appeared in dreams, the custom reflected a timeless human desire to glimpse what lies ahead.

The Healing Power of Dew and Herbs

Midsummer dew was believed to possess special powers. People walked barefoot through dew-covered grass or rolled in the morning dew to gain health, strength, and protection from illness during the coming year. Dew was also collected for healing purposes and was sometimes used to improve the fermentation of bread and beer.

Herbs and medicinal plants were likewise thought to gain extra potency on Midsummer Night. Many people gathered plants on this particular night to dry and use throughout the rest of the year. St. John’s wort was used to ease anxiety and melancholy, yarrow to treat fever and wounds, while meadowsweet was believed to relieve pain and inflammation.

Several of the herbs collected for their healing properties later found their way into flavored spirits. Caraway, dill, anise, and fennel were used to season medicinal aquavits believed to aid digestion and promote health. Over time, these herbal infusions evolved into the spiced schnapps that remain an essential part of many Swedish Midsummer celebrations today. In this way, echoes of the ancient knowledge of nature’s healing plants still linger in today’s Midsummer celebrations.

Walking Into the Future

One of the most intriguing folk traditions was known as an “årsgång” or “year walk.”

Those seeking visions of the future would walk alone through the night, often fasting beforehand and remaining completely silent. Certain routes or rituals had to be followed precisely.

If successful, the walker might witness symbolic visions revealing future weddings, deaths, harvests, or other significant events.

Stories of year walks often include encounters with mysterious creatures, strange sounds, and supernatural tests of courage.

Elves, Water Spirits, and Hidden Beings

Midsummer night was also believed to be a time when supernatural beings moved freely through the landscape.

The Näcken, a water spirit known for his enchanting violin music, was said to play beside streams and rivers. Elves danced in the morning mist over meadows. Forest spirits, trolls, and other beings could either help or hinder humans depending on how they were treated.

To protect themselves, people sometimes carried iron objects such as knives or scissors. Fire, salt, and protective symbols were also used to guard against unseen forces.

Sacred Springs and Living Waters

Across Sweden, sacred springs and healing wells attracted visitors during Midsummer.

People decorated them with flowers and greenery, drank from their waters, and left coins or small offerings in exchange for health, luck, and protection.

These places were often regarded as meeting points between the natural and spiritual worlds, where the forces of the earth were especially present.

Over time, many of the old beliefs faded, but the traditions remained, taking on new meanings and expressions with each generation.

Midsummer Today – A Celebration of Togetherness

While many of the old beliefs about magic, omens, and supernatural beings have faded, Midsummer remains one of Sweden’s most cherished celebrations. For many, it marks the true beginning of summer.

Across the country, families and friends gather in gardens, by lakes, in the countryside, or along the coast. Communities raise and decorate the maypole with birch leaves and flowers, while children and adults join hands to dance traditional songs around it.

One of the most popular dances around the Midsummer pole is Little Frogs (Små grodorna), whose famous refrain begins, “Little frogs, little frogs, are funny to behold.” Few people realize that the melody originally comes from a French military march and that the song likely has its roots in an English comic tune that mocked French soldiers by calling them “frogs.” What once may have been a soldiers’ song has, over time, become one of the most beloved and playful traditions of the Swedish Midsummer celebration.

The festive table typically features pickled herring, new potatoes, sour cream, chives, crispbread, salmon, and strawberries—the flavors that many Swedes associate most strongly with summer. Flower wreaths are woven, outdoor games are played, and celebrations often continue long into the bright Nordic evening.

For some, Midsummer is about preserving tradition. For others, it is simply a chance to slow down, reconnect with loved ones, and enjoy the beauty of nature at its most abundant. In a fast-changing world, the holiday continues to offer something timeless: a moment to celebrate light, community, and the joy of being together.

More Than a Celebration

Much of the old folklore has faded, yet the spirit of Midsummer remains remarkably alive.

Today, few people expect to encounter elves in the mist or receive prophetic visions through dreams. Yet many of the rituals endure. We still gather flowers, weave wreaths, dance around the maypole, and celebrate the beauty of the season with those we care about.

Perhaps this is why Midsummer continues to resonate so deeply.

At its heart, Midsummer is more than a holiday. It is a celebration of light after darkness, community after isolation, and possibility after uncertainty. It reminds us of our enduring connection to nature, to one another, and to the rhythms of life that have shaped human experience for generations.

And perhaps that is why, even today, the Midsummer night still feels a little magical — a moment when light, nature, and humanity’s longing for connection come together.

Celebrating Summer’s Moments – Art for Collecting and Giving

As summer unfolds, it also becomes a season of celebrations, gatherings, milestones, and meaningful gifts. Just as people have long marked Midsummer with flowers, symbols, and objects carrying memories and stories, art can become a lasting reminder of a special moment, place, or connection.

If this reflection on light, nature, hope, and belonging has resonated with you, you are warmly invited to explore a selection of original artworks by Novisali available for collection and gifting.

Explore the collection here: Novisali Artwork Collection

Swedish Midsummer Music Inspiration

References

• Nordiska Museet – Midsummer
  An overview of the history, traditions, and celebrations of Midsummer in Sweden.
• Nordiska Museet – Midsummer Celebrations and Traditions
  Information about the maypole, dancing, food traditions, and the evolution of Midsummer celebrations.
• Nordiska Museet – Folklore of Midsummer Night Magic
  Insights from folklorist Tora Wall on Midsummer magic, dew rituals, healing plants, year walks, elves, water spirits, and other supernatural beliefs.
• Nordiska Museet – Dream Interpretation and Love Magic
  Traditions surrounding prophetic dreams, love magic, and the custom of placing flowers under one’s pillow.

Additional Sources

• Skansen – Midsummer Traditions
  A historical overview of Swedish Midsummer traditions and their preservation through generations.
• Wikipedia – Midsummer (Swedish)
  Background information on the history, timing, and regional variations of Midsummer celebrations.
• Gimle Kultur – The Magical Midsummer Night
  A popular-history article exploring traditional folklore and magical beliefs associated with Midsummer Night.

Further Reading on Nordic Folklore

• Nordiska Museet – Nordic Days and Nights: The Magic of Midsummer Night
  Folklore accounts and archival stories about Midsummer Night, supernatural beings, omens, and traditional beliefs.

Midsommar – Solens högtid mellan historia, folktro och magi

När sommaren står som grönast och nätterna nästan aldrig blir mörka samlas människor över hela Sverige kring midsommarstången. Vi dansar, sjunger, binder blomsterkransar och delar måltider med familj och vänner. För många är midsommar årets mest älskade högtid. Men bakom jordgubbarna, sillunchen och de lekfulla traditionerna döljer sig en lång historia fylld av symbolik, naturmagi och gammal folktro.

En högtid äldre än Sverige

Midsommar firas nära sommarsolståndet, den tidpunkt då solen står som högst på himlen och dagarna är som längst. Firandet har rötter långt tillbaka i tiden, långt före industrialiseringen och kanske även före kristendomens etablering i Norden. När kristendomen spreds knöts högtiden till Johannes Döparens dag den 24 juni, men många av de äldre sederna levde kvar och vävdes samman med de kristna traditionerna.

För människor som levde nära naturen markerade midsommar en avgörande tidpunkt på året. Sådden var genomförd, växtligheten stod i full kraft och framtidens skörd började ta form. Ljuset, värmen och grönskan symboliserade liv, fruktbarhet och hopp.

Midsommarstången – en symbol för liv och växtkraft

Midsommarstången, klädd med björklöv och blommor, blev under 1700- och 1800-talen en central del av firandet i stora delar av Sverige. Stången restes på byns gemensamma plats och blev en samlingspunkt för dans, musik och gemenskap.

Den gröna stången symboliserade naturens livskraft och sommarens överflöd. Att smycka med löv och blommor var inte bara dekorativt – det uttryckte en djup respekt för naturens förnyande krafter och människans beroende av dem.

När gränsen mellan världarna blev tunn

I äldre folktro betraktades midsommarnatten som en av årets mest magiska nätter.

Man trodde att gränsen mellan människornas värld och den övernaturliga världen var tunnare än vanligt. Naturen ansågs vara fylld av särskilda krafter, och många ritualer utfördes för att få kunskap om framtiden, hälsa eller kärlek.

Folkloristen Tora Wall beskriver hur tre frågor återkom i många midsommartraditioner:

• Vem skulle gifta sig?
• Vem skulle dö?
• Hur skulle nästa års skörd bli?

Midsommarnatten blev därför en tid för spådomar, varseltolkning och olika former av magiska handlingar.

Sju blommor under kudden

Den mest levande traditionen idag är kanske att plocka sju sorters blommor och lägga dem under kudden för att drömma om sin framtida kärlek.

I äldre varianter skulle blommorna plockas under tystnad. Ofta skulle man även hoppa över gärdsgårdar mellan varje blomma. Tystnaden och gränsöverskridandet markerade att man lämnade vardagens värld och trädde in i den magiska. Antalet blommor varierade mellan sju och nio – båda tal som länge ansetts bära särskild kraft i nordisk folktro.

Daggen och örterna som gav hälsa och styrka

Midsommardaggen ansågs vara särskilt kraftfull. Människor gick barfota i daggvått gräs eller rullade sig i morgondaggen för att få hälsa, styrka och skydd mot sjukdomar under det kommande året. Daggen samlades också in för läkande ändamål och användes ibland för att förbättra jäsningen av bröd och öl.

Även örter och medicinalväxter ansågs få extra kraft under midsommarnatten. Många samlade växter just denna natt för att torka och använda under resten av året. Johannesört användes mot oro och nedstämdhet, rölleka mot feber och sår, medan älggräs ansågs lindra värk och inflammation.

Flera av de örter som samlades för läkedom kom senare också att användas för att krydda brännvin. Kummin, dill, anis och fänkål gav smak åt de medicinalbrännvin som ansågs främja hälsa och matsmältning. Med tiden utvecklades dessa till de kryddade snapsar som än idag är en självklar del av många midsommarbord. På så sätt lever en del av den gamla kunskapen om naturens läkande växter vidare även i dagens firande.

Årsgång – att vandra in i framtiden

En av de mest fascinerande midsommarritualerna kallades årsgång. Den som ville få veta framtiden gick ensam, fastande och under fullständig tystnad. Ofta skulle man gå motsols runt en kyrka eller färdas genom natten längs särskilda vägar.

Om ritualen lyckades kunde man enligt traditionen få syner av framtida händelser: bröllop, begravningar eller kommande skördar. I berättelserna mötte årsgångaren ofta märkliga väsen och övernaturliga prövningar längs vägen.

Näcken, älvorna och de osynliga makterna

Midsommarnatten ansågs också vara en tid då övernaturliga väsen rörde sig fritt.

Näcken spelade sin förföriska musik vid forsar och bäckar. Älvorna dansade över ängarna i morgondimman. Skogsrået, trollen och andra väsen kunde både hjälpa och skada människor beroende på hur de behandlades.

För att skydda sig bar många järnföremål, exempelvis en kniv eller sax. Eld, salt och korstecken användes också som skydd mot det okända.

Källor med läkande kraft

På flera platser i Sverige fanns särskilda offerkällor som besöktes vid midsommar. Källorna smyckades med löv och blommor, och människor drack av vattnet eller lämnade mynt som offer för att få hälsa, styrka och lycka. Särskilt kraftfulla ansågs källor vara om de låg på gränsen mellan olika marker eller matades av nordrinnande vatten.

Med tiden bleknade många av de gamla föreställningarna, men flera av traditionerna levde vidare och fick nya uttryck.

Midsommar idag – en högtid av ljus och gemenskap

Även om många av de gamla föreställningarna om magi, omen och övernaturliga väsen har bleknat, är midsommar fortfarande en av Sveriges mest älskade högtider. För många markerar den den verkliga början på sommaren.

Över hela landet samlas familjer och vänner i trädgårdar, sommarstugor, på bygdegårdar, vid sjöar eller längs kusten. Midsommarstången kläs med björklöv och blommor, och barn och vuxna dansar tillsammans runt stången till välkända sånger. Blomsterkransar binds, lekar anordnas och firandet fortsätter ofta långt in i den ljusa nordiska sommarnatten.

En av de mest populära danserna kring midsommarstången är Små grodorna, Små grodorna är lustiga att se. Få känner till att melodin ursprungligen kommer från en fransk militärmarsch och att sången sannolikt har rötter i en engelsk skämtvisa där franska soldater kallades för “grodor”. Det som en gång var en soldatvisa har med tiden blivit en av de mest älskade och lekfulla inslagen i det svenska midsommarfirandet.

På det festliga bordet står ofta sill, färskpotatis, gräddfil, gräslök, lax, knäckebröd och jordgubbar – smaker som för många blivit själva sinnebilden av svensk sommar. Visor sjungs, skålar utbringas och flera generationer möts runt samma bord.

Även om traditionerna har förändrats bär många av dem fortfarande spår av äldre tiders sedvänjor. Blommor plockas, hus och festplatser smyckas med grönska och människor söker sig ut i naturen när den är som mest levande. De gamla teman som präglat midsommar genom århundradena – fruktbarhet, förnyelse, gemenskap och hopp – finns fortfarande närvarande i firandet.

För vissa handlar midsommar om att bevara kulturarvet. För andra är det en möjlighet att sakta ner, umgås med nära och kära och njuta av naturens skönhet. I en värld som förändras allt snabbare erbjuder midsommar fortfarande något tidlöst: en stund att fira ljuset, naturen och glädjen i att vara tillsammans.

Från magi till gemenskap

Mycket av den gamla folktron har försvunnit, men midsommar fortsätter att vara en högtid fylld av symbolik. Vi kanske inte längre tror att älvor dansar över ängarna eller att framtiden visar sig i midsommardrömmar, men många av ritualerna lever kvar.

När vi binder blomsterkransar, plockar blommor, dansar kring midsommarstången eller samlas med familj och vänner gör vi något som generationer före oss också har gjort. Kanske är det just därför midsommar fortfarande berör oss så starkt.

I en tid då mycket förändras erbjuder midsommar en påminnelse om något tidlöst: människans längtan efter gemenskap, naturens kraft och hoppet om en god framtid.

Kanske är det därför midsommarnatten fortfarande känns lite magisk – som ett ögonblick då ljuset, naturen och människors längtan efter gemenskap möts.

Att Fira Sommarens Stunder – Konst att Samla och Ge Bort

När sommaren breder ut sig blir den också en tid för firanden, möten, milstolpar och omtänksamma gåvor. Precis som människor i generationer har markerat midsommar med blommor, symboler och föremål fyllda av minnen och berättelser, kan konst bli en bestående påminnelse om en särskild stund, plats eller relation.

Om denna reflektion kring ljus, natur, hopp och tillhörighet har berört dig är du varmt välkommen att utforska ett urval av Novisalis originalverk, tillgängliga för samlingar och som meningsfulla gåvor.

Utforska samlingen här: Novisali Artwork Collection

Svensk Midsommarmusik Inspiration

Källor

Här är källorna till artikeln med direktlänkar för vidare läsning:

• Nordiska museet – Midsommar
  Översikt över midsommarens historia, traditioner och firande i Sverige.
• Nordiska museet – Midsommarfirande och traditioner
  Om midsommarstången, lekar, mat, musik och firandets utveckling.
• Intervju med folkloristen Tora Wall om midsommarnattens magi, årsgång, midsommardagg, läkekraftiga växter, Näcken, älvor och andra väsen. 
• Nordiska museet – Drömtydning och kärleksmagi
  Om kärleksmagi, sanndrömmar och traditionen med blommor under kudden.

Kompletterande källor

• Skansen – Midsommar på Skansen
  Om midsommarfirandets historia och hur traditionerna bevarats genom generationer.
• Wikipedia – Midsommar
  Bakgrund om midsommarens historiska utveckling, datum och regionala traditioner.
• Gimle Kultur – Den magiska midsommarnatten
  En populärhistorisk genomgång av midsommarnattens folktro och symbolik.

Fördjupning om nordisk folktro

• Folktro om midsommarnattens magi
  Samling av berättelser och folkminnen kring midsommarnatten och dess övernaturliga föreställningar.

The post Midsummer – A Celebration of Light, Magic, and Ancient Traditions first appeared on Novisali.

The quiet moment when someone stopped, reflected, and connected the artwork to a memory, a feeling, or a question within themselves. That moment stayed with me. Because something is shifting — not only in technology, but in how we perceive, learn, and create meaning.

The Shift from Information to Experience

We are moving from information to experience. From observing the world to stepping into it.

What is often called immersive intelligence — the convergence of extended reality, AI, and spatial technologies— is not simply about smarter systems. It is about environments we can move within, interact with, and emotionally experience. And perhaps that changes us too.

Much of the conversation around AI has focused on automation and efficiency. Yet at the same time, deeply human capabilities are becoming more important: reflection, imagination, interpretation, presence, and the ability to navigate uncertainty without immediate answers.

Perhaps this is why immersive experiences matter. Not because they overwhelm us with stimulation — but because they can invite us into deeper attention. A slower form of seeing. A different kind of participation. A space where meaning has time to emerge.

Between Leadership, Art, and Immersion

Over the years, I have explored many of these questions across both boardrooms and artistic practice — through leadership, executive coaching, immersive learning, spatial technologies, and increasingly through art itself.

As former Chair of the art museum Artipelag, I became fascinated by what happened when people no longer simply observed art, but stepped into it through immersive experiences such as Imagine Monet. Through leadership and governance work connected to AI and transformation, I also saw how emerging technologies were beginning to reshape not only what organizations do — but how humans perceive, learn, and relate.

Art as a Practice of Immersive Intelligence

Increasingly, I see art as a form of creative R&D for the human experience. A way of exploring how emerging technologies reshape perception, participation, memory, and emotional connection before their roles fully stabilize in society.

Again and again, I return to the same underlying question: How do humans continue to create meaning, orientation, and connection in environments shaped by increasing technological complexity?

Perhaps immersive intelligence ultimately asks us not only to build more intelligent systems — but to become more present, reflective, and relational humans within them.  Because maybe the most important immersive space is not virtual at all. But the inner space where meaning slowly emerges.

Entering the Space Between

These explorations have also shaped my own artistic practice as Novisali. Across virtual exhibitions such as just launched Inter Spatia Spei, artworks from the series Hopepunk, Human Cartography, Sparks of Hope, and Hopepunk Equinox are presented as immersive spaces for reflection — where watercolor, digital layering, augmented reality, sound, movement, and AI-supported reflection begin to intersect.

The intention is not simply to display images, but to create environments people can pause within. Spaces where viewers are invited not only to observe, but to participate in meaning-making itself.

The experiences also pffer to include a guided reflection through the AI-assisted Novisali Art Reflection Guide, where gentle questions invite visitors to explore their own responses to the artworks: What draws your attention? What feels unresolved? What quietly asks to be seen?

Perhaps immersive intelligence becomes most meaningful not when technology replaces human reflection — but when it deepens it.

If You Wish to Explore Further

Imagine Monet:

David Hockney and his pioneering iPad-based drawing practice:

Anna Zhilyaeva (Anna Dream Brush), working with Oculus Quest virtual reality using Google’s Tilt Brush:

Refik Anadol, leading AI artist exploring AI, data, memory, and sensory environments:

Storymap about Hokusai:

Explore the Ideas

• World Economic Forum & Capgemini: Technology Convergence: The New Logic for Competitive Advantage
• Visual Arena & Immersive Sweden: Immersive Intelligence Sweden – Final Report
• Future Art Ecosystems: Future Art Ecosystems 5 – Art x Creative R&D
• INSEAD Knowledge: AI and Jobs – What Workers Can Do to Protect Themselves
• INSEAD Knowledge: Why Leaders Need to Take Play Seriously
• King’s College London Creative AI Lab:
• Examples of Story Maps enabled by ESRI
• Serpentine’s work on art and AI

Related Stories from Novisali

About Novisali 

Novisali, (alias Liselotte Engstam), is besides her roles as professional board member and advisor, a multi-media artist, with a curious, explorative mind and an ambition to learn and extend art experiences to current and new audiences using both traditional and new digital mediums. More information and exhibitions can be found via Novisali.com

This blog post is also shared at the blog of www.liselotteengstam.com.

The post Immersive Intelligence and the Human Spaces Between first appeared on Novisali.

When the Swedish visual artist died in 1944, she was convinced the world was not ready for her work—mystical, abstract paintings that seemed to belong to another time. Rather than seek recognition after her avant-garde visions were dismissed, she chose withdrawal. Her instructions were clear: the paintings should remain hidden for at least twenty years and never be sold.

Today, that silence has finally broken.

In Paris, more than eighty years after her death, af Klint is being given her first major solo exhibition in France. At the Grand Palais and the Centre Pompidou, her monumental Paintings for the Temple—created as part of her work with a spiritual circle of women—are now presented as a cornerstone of modern art. What was once considered incomprehensible is now seen as foundational.

But Hilma af Klint was not alone.

She lived and worked in the same era as Tyra Kleen, another Swedish artist drawn to symbolism, spirituality and unseen worlds. The two moved within overlapping circles and were in contact—part of a wider, often overlooked network of artists exploring ideas that did not yet have a place in the official story of art. Today, Tyra Kleen’s work is being shown in Halmstad, bringing her back into view alongside her contemporaries.

Their stories echo one another—parallel paths that history is only now beginning to reconnect.

And somewhere between these lines, I imagine my aunt, Engla Hägertz, moving quietly through time. Not as a historical figure in the same narrative, but as a witness of another kind. In my mind, she exchanges letters with both Hilma and Tyra—letters never sent, yet somehow received. They write about light, about symbols, about the strange persistence of vision.

In one imagined note, Hilma might confess her doubt: “Will they ever understand?”

And Tyra, perhaps from another studio, might respond: “Understanding is not ours to decide.”

Engla, with her camera and her patient gaze, simply observes—knowing that some images must wait before they can be seen.

Today, she, too, steps into the light. Engla is now part of Novisali’s exhibition at Hallands Museum and featured in Hallands Vårsalong, where past and present meet in quiet conversation. And this is not the end—a future exhibition with Novisali and Engla will be announced later, extending this dialogue across time even further.

Now, in Paris and Halmstad, across museums and imagined letters, that long waiting feels as if it has come to an end.

Or perhaps, more truthfully—

it has only just begun.

References

About Hilma in the Guardian

Hilma at Centre Pompidou in Paris

Letters between Engla and Hilma

Letters between Engla and Tyra

About Engla

About Hallands Spring Salon

About Novisali 

Novisali, (alias Liselotte Engstam), is besides her roles as professional board member and advisor, a multi-media artist, with a curious, explorative mind and an ambition to learn and extend art experiences to current and new audiences using both traditional and new digital mediums. More information and exhibitions can be found via Novisali.com

This blog post is also shared at the blog of www.liselotteengstam.com.

Närvaro genom tidens lager

Hilma af Klint målade för en framtid hon själv aldrig skulle få se.

När den svenska bildkonstnären dog 1944 var hon övertygad om att världen inte var redo för hennes verk — mystiska, abstrakta målningar som tycktes höra till en annan tid. I stället för att söka erkännande efter att hennes avantgardistiska visioner avfärdats valde hon att dra sig tillbaka. Hennes instruktioner var tydliga: målningarna skulle förbli dolda i minst tjugo år och aldrig säljas.

Idag har den tystnaden till slut brutits.

I Paris, mer än åttio år efter hennes död, får af Klint sin första stora separatutställning i Frankrike. På Grand Palais och Centre Pompidou presenteras hennes monumentala Målningar för templet — skapade som en del av hennes arbete i en andlig kvinnokrets — nu som en hörnsten i den moderna konsten. Det som en gång ansågs obegripligt ses idag som grundläggande.

Men Hilma af Klint var inte ensam.
Hon levde och verkade under samma tid som Tyra Kleen, en annan svensk konstnär som drogs till symbolism, spiritualitet och osynliga världar. De rörde sig i överlappande kretsar och hade kontakt — en del av ett bredare, ofta förbisett nätverk av konstnärer som utforskade idéer som ännu inte hade någon plats i konstens officiella berättelse. Idag visas Tyra Kleens verk i Halmstad, vilket för henne tillbaka i ljuset tillsammans med sina samtida.

Deras berättelser speglar varandra — parallella vägar som historien först nu börjar knyta samman.
Och någonstans mellan dessa rader föreställer jag mig min faster, Engla Hägertz, som rör sig stilla genom tiden. Inte som en historisk figur i samma berättelse, utan som ett vittne av ett annat slag. I min föreställning utbyter hon brev med både Hilma och Tyra — brev som aldrig skickats, men ändå på något sätt mottagits. De skriver om ljus, om symboler, om bildens märkliga uthållighet.

I en tänkt anteckning kanske Hilma erkänner sitt tvivel: ”Kommer de någonsin att förstå?”
Och Tyra, kanske från en annan ateljé, svarar: ”Förståelsen är inte vår att avgöra.”
Engla, med sin kamera och sin tålmodiga blick, observerar bara — medveten om att vissa bilder måste vänta innan de kan ses.

Idag träder också hon fram i ljuset. Engla är nu en del av Novisalis utställning på Hallands konstmuseum och medverkar i Hallands Vårsalong, där dåtid och nutid möts i en stilla dialog. Och detta är inte slutet — en kommande utställning med Novisali och Engla kommer att annonseras senare, vilket förlänger denna dialog över tid ännu mer.

Nu, i Paris och Halmstad, mellan museer och imaginära brev, känns det som om den långa väntan har nått sitt slut.
Eller kanske, mer sanningsenligt —
har den just börjat.

References

Om Hilma i Guardian

Hilma på Centre Pompidou i Paris

Brev mellan Engla och Hilma

Brev mellan Engla och Tyra

Om Engla

Om Hallands Vårsalong  

Om Novisali 

Novisali (alias Liselotte Engstam) är, vid sidan av sina roller som professionell styrelseledamot och rådgivare, en multimediakonstnär med ett nyfiket och utforskande sinne.
Hon strävar efter att lära och utvidga konstupplevelser för både nuvarande och nya publikgrupper, genom att använda både traditionella och nya digitala medier.

Mer information och utställningar finns på Novisali.com.
Detta blogginlägg delas också på www.liselotteengstam.com.

The post Mapping Presence Across Time / Närvaro genom tidens lager first appeared on Novisali.

(på svenska nedan)

Still life is often described as quiet.
But when you spend time with objects long enough, they begin to speak.

This week’s work was not about capturing a moment, but about building one — arranging, waiting, adjusting light until something unseen settled into place. The image emerges slowly. Almost reluctantly. And then, at some point, it feels as if the objects recognise one another.

I chose to work with objects from my mother’s family — the Lindahl clergy family of northern Sweden. Three images became three small constellations. Not portraits of people, but traces of lives once lived.

1 — Grandma Märta and Stillness

On a brass tray rest books, a hymnbook, and small personal fragments carefully kept over time — a lock of hair, a confirmation handkerchief, a harmonica once played. Objects touched often, then slowly left to rest.

The light is soft and warm. Nothing moves.
The image holds a kind of stillness where time feels suspended, as if memory itself has slowed down.

2 — Grandpa Allan and Time

The second image is darker. An old clock made by my grandfather stands at the centre, surrounded by tools, books, a key from a church long served by his grandpa, and objects shaped by hands accustomed to work.

Shadows play a larger role here. Time is present not as passing, but as accumulation — in surfaces worn smooth, in objects repaired rather than replaced. Even the small stones carry uncertainty, believed once to be fragments of a meteorite.

Some stories remain unresolved. Perhaps that is why they endure.

3 — Blanche and Tradition

The third image carries traces of Sámi culture through objects given to my mother’s aunt Blanche during her years as a teacher. A small toy sled, a reindeer leather purse, a drinking cup  (kåsa), a decorated Sámi knife.

These objects speak of craftsmanship and exchange — of lives meeting across cultures. The image is grounded, close to the earth, shaped by materials that age slowly and remain useful long after their makers are gone.

Light as Continuation

Looking at the three images afterwards, one element returns quietly: light.

Not dramatic light, but a presence. A small persistence.
Something that continues.

Both my grandparents belonged for a time to the Rosicrucian Order, where contemplation and symbolism held an important place. Without intending it, the still lifes began to resemble small reflective spaces — not religious, but attentive. Places where objects are allowed to hold memory.

The images became less about documentation and more about listening. About an invisible inheritance — the sense that meaning moves through generations, sometimes silently, carried forward in ordinary things.

It is striking how much life can remain in objects that no longer move.

References and Further Reading

The Lindahl Family
The Lindahl clergy family of northern Sweden forms the historical background to several of the objects included in the images.
Lindahl Family Association – History

Rosicrucian Order
The Rosicrucian Order is a philosophical and symbolic tradition rooted in European mysticism and contemplative thought.
Rosicrucianism – Overview

Family References
Märta Lindahl
Allan Lindahl
Rudolf Lindahl
Björn-Olle Lindahl

Related Stories

Seeing More Slowly
Upcoming Exhibition – Inspiring Photography

När föremål börjar tala

En fördjupning i stilleben

Stilleben beskrivs ofta som stilla.
Men när man tillbringar tillräckligt lång tid med föremål börjar de tala.

Veckans fördjupningar handlade inte om att fånga ett ögonblick, utan om att bygga ett — att arrangera, vänta och justera ljuset tills något osynligt föll på plats. Bilden växer fram långsamt. Nästan motvilligt. Och någonstans längs vägen uppstår en känsla av att föremålen börjar känna igen varandra.

Jag valde att arbeta med föremål från min mammas släkt — den Lindahlska prästsläkten i norra Sverige. Tre bilder blev till tre små konstellationer. Inte porträtt av människor, utan spår av levda liv.

1 — Mormor Märta och stillheten

På en mässingsbricka vilar böcker, en psalmbok och små personliga fragment som bevarats över tid — en hårlock, en konfirmationsnäsduk, ett munspel som en gång spelats. Föremål som ofta hållits i händer, och sedan långsamt fått vila.

Ljuset är mjukt och varmt. Ingenting rör sig.
Bilden bär en stillhet där tiden tycks upphävd, som om själva minnet har saktat in.

2 — Morfar Allan och tiden

Den andra bilden är mörkare. I centrum står en gammal klocka tillverkad av min morfar, omgiven av verktyg, böcker, en nyckel från en kyrka där hans farfar en gång tjänstgjorde, och föremål formade av händer vana vid arbete.

Skuggorna får större utrymme här. Tiden framträder inte som något som passerar, utan som något som samlas — i ytor som slitits mjuka, i saker som lagats istället för att ersättas. Även de små stenarna bär på en osäkerhet, en gång trodda vara fragment från ett meteoritnedslag.

Vissa berättelser förblir ofullständiga. Kanske är det därför de består.

3 — Faster Blanche och traditionen

Den tredje bilden bär spår av samisk kultur genom föremål som min mammas faster Blanche fick under sina år som lärare. En liten leksakssläde, en penningpung i renskinn, en kåsa och en dekorerad samekniv.

Föremålen berättar om hantverk och utbyte — om liv som möts mellan kulturer. Bilden är jordnära, nära materialen, formad av sådant som åldras långsamt och förblir användbart långt efter att dess skapare gått vidare.

Ljuset som fortsättning

När jag ser på bilderna i efterhand är det ett element som stilla återkommer: ljuset.

Inte ett dramatiskt ljus, utan en närvaro. En lågmäld uthållighet.
Något som fortsätter.

Både min mormor och morfar tillhörde under en period Rosencreutzarorden, där det kontemplativa och symboliska hade en viktig plats. Utan att det var avsikten började stillebenen likna små rum för eftertanke — inte religiösa, men uppmärksamma. Platser där föremål får bära minne.

Bilderna kom därför att handla mindre om dokumentation och mer om lyssnande. Om ett osynligt arv — känslan av att mening rör sig genom generationer, ibland stilla, buren vidare i vardagliga ting.

Det är slående hur mycket liv som kan finnas kvar i föremål som inte längre rör sig.

Referenser och Mer 

Lindhalska släkten
Den Lindhalska prästsläkten i norra Sverige utgör den historiska bakgrunden till flera av föremålen i bilderna.
Lindahl släktförening – historik

Märta Lindahl
Allan Lindahl
Rudolf Lindahl
Björn-Olle Lindahl

Rosencreutzarorden
Rosencreutzarorden är en filosofisk och symbolisk tradition med rötter i europeisk mystik och kontemplation.
Rosenkreuzarna – översikt

Relaterade Historier 

Att se mer långsamt 

Kommande utställning Inspirerade Fotografier 

About Novisali 

Novisali, (alias Liselotte Engstam), is besides her roles as professional board member and advisor, a multi-media artist, with a curious, explorative mind and an ambition to learn and extend art experiences to current and new audiences using both traditional and new digital mediums. More information and exhibitions can be found via Novisali.com

This blog post is also shared at the blog of www.liselotteengstam.com, with the artist name Novisali.

The post When Objects Begin to Speak/ När föremål börjar tala first appeared on Novisali.

(Läs denna blogpost på svenska HÄR)

What happens in what was never said? What might have emerged, had their worlds—of camera and brush, of everyday life and dreams—truly met?

This project imagines a conversation that was never documented but might well have taken place. Through fictional letters, we follow an imagined correspondence between Engla Hägertz, photographer in Oskarström, and members of the Halmstad Group—six young artists with roots in the same Halland soil but with visions reaching far beyond the horizon.

Two visual realms, one shared light 

The Halmstad Group—consisting of Erik Olson, Axel Olson, Waldemar Lorentzon, Esaias Thorén, Sven Jonson, and Stellan Mörner—became known for their dreamlike, surrealist, and often geometrically structured paintings. Drawing inspiration from Parisian modernism and the symbolic language of the subconscious, they created art that both provoked and puzzled.

Engla Hägertz worked simultaneously, though in a different sphere. As a female photographer in an industrial town, she captured portraits, landscapes, and everyday moments with equal parts precision and intuition. Her photographs carry both documentary value and poetic presence—especially in her later works, where shadows, reflections, and in-between spaces are allowed to speak.

If they had met 

Perhaps they glimpsed one another’s images—in storefronts, studios, or fleeting thoughts. Perhaps one of the artists saw her photographs in Oskarström and felt a quiet kinship. Perhaps Engla heard about their exhibitions in Halmstad or Gothenburg—and wondered what lay behind their dreamlike forms.

In these letters, they finally meet. In thought, in image, in the spaces between two modes of expression. The words exchanged are gentle, sometimes cryptic, sometimes precise—but always rooted in a shared search for what lies beneath the surface.

It is a poetic experiment. An artistic what-if. An invitation to listen into the silence that sometimes arises—just where the image ends, and something new begins.

Engla in Other Conversations 

This is not the only imagined correspondence centered on Engla Hägertz. In a parallel artistic project—“When Quiet Visionaries Speak”—a similar poetic correspondence unfolds between Engla and the artist Hilma af Klint. There, the dialogue moves within the spiritual and intuitive, between symbols, visions, and stillness.

Here—in dialogue with the Halmstad Group—the focus is instead on Halland’s soil, the shadows of the body, and the forms of art.

— Novisali

Letters between Engla Hägertz and members of Halmstadgruppen

Axel Olson → Engla Hägertz

Halmstad, October 1916
Dear Miss Hägertz,

My fingers are stained with graphite—shadows left from a long day of silent experimentation.

Erik and I saw your portraits from Oskarström. The woman in the cook’s cap, in front of the medallion wallpaper. That gaze—as if she’d been painted by the innermost longing of light.

We call ourselves The Spark. An attempt to paint what we can only sense.

Would you consider lending us an image? One that doesn’t just show—but thinks.

In shifting shadows,
Axel

P.S. I’m enclosing a sketch: a fisherman hanging his nets, and an image of a work with an anchor and rope. Small things that linger in the hand.

Engla Hägertz → Axel Olson

Oskarström, November 1916
Mr. Olson,

Your letter stirred something quiet in me. My images are silent—but sometimes they whisper to those who listen with the soul.

I’m sending a photograph of a child’s chair, double-exposed with two faces. It’s from Oskarström, but could be a memory from anywhere.

Let your spark burn not high—but deep.

With gentle stillness,
Engla

Waldemar Lorentzon → Engla Hägertz

Snöstorp, April 1918
Mrs. Hägertz,

The chair you sent has haunted me. I dreamt it toppled under a sky full of stars.

Lately, I paint only forms: pears, circles, ladders. But the way you make a room breathe won’t leave me.

Have you ever photographed through a mirror? I tried today—but the mirror only showed myself.

/ Walle

P.S. A drawing of myself enclosed, and a photo of a piece: mirror, autumn leaves, dreams.

Engla Hägertz → Waldemar Lorentzon

Oskarström, June 1918
Dear Waldemar,

Mirrors often lie. But sometimes they show exactly what we’re fleeing from.

I have a glass plate where my face is faintly visible—overexposed, nearly erased. But I kept it.

If you paint your ladders, let them rest against something not yet seen.

Kindly,
Engla

P.S. Enclosed is the photo where I appear in the mirror, and another from Oskarström’s jute factory, with a few workers.

Sven Jonson → Engla Hägertz

Halmstad, November 1923
Miss Engla,

I write from the buzzing pause of the printing press. Esaias and I are forming Modern Reklam—a world between art and utility.

We saw your factory photo. No one smiles, yet presence radiates.

Is there an image you haven’t sold? One too quiet for the scream of a poster—but strong enough to see?

With respect,
Sven

P.S. Enclosed: an image from Vallgatan, Halmstad, recently painted in oil.

Engla Hägertz → Sven Jonson

Oskarström, January 1924
Mr. Jonson,

I have a negative—factory, two windows, hesitant light. No one wanted it. It was too silent.

But you may borrow it.

Posters are fixed eyes. They must see more clearly than we do.

/ Engla

Esaias Thorén → Engla Hägertz

Halmstad, March 1925
Miss Hägertz,

We’ll soon exhibit—at the Stadshotellet. Will you come?

I painted a table, a vase, fruit, and a chair leaning like in a dream. Sven calls it surrealism—I say everyday life in disguise.

Creation sways: red becomes green, geometry yearns for forest. Do you have a photo that tries to hide its subject?

Your friend,
Esaias

P.S. Enclosed: images of the still life and a banjo player I painted in oil last year.

Engla Hägertz → Esaias Thorén

Oskarström, April 1925
Esaias,

I have a picture. Double-exposed, tilted, difficult. It shows something—or nothing. You’ll see what comes forth.

Sometimes, what we don’t see is more true than what is visible.

Regards,
Engla

Engla Hägertz → Sven Jonson

Oskarström, February 1928
Dear Sven,

You spoke of Paris. But I believe you’re already on your way home in thought.

I developed a photo from Tylösand—a sea, a moment. I don’t know if it’s a beginning or an end.

If your paintings turn dreamlike, promise me they still reflect the world we actually tread.

What does silence look like in paint?

/ Engla

Sven Jonson → Engla Hägertz

Halmstad, March 1928
Miss Engla,

I never traveled. Paris already lives in our minds.

We talk of a shared direction—Esaias, Erik, Axel, Stellan, Waldemar, and I. A group—but perhaps more an inner landscape.

Your double-exposed photo said more than many manifestos.

Silence on canvas? Perhaps that’s what we’re trying to paint.

With friendship,
Sven

P.S. Here’s a painting from a Paris café I made two years ago. Perhaps it’s you, on your Paris journey? And some fishermen in similar colours,

Engla Hägertz → Erik Olson

Oskarström, May 1929
Mr. Olson,

I heard your paintings in Copenhagen were described as “full of inner machinery.” It sounded like a dream constructed with precision.

I have a photograph where a mirror shows a wall, but if you look closely, it’s only a tiled stove. Sometimes it happens: the image begins to imagine—and means it.

Perhaps you are there now—at the edge where reality and inner imagery blend.

With curiosity,
Engla

P.S. Enclosed is the photo with the mirror and stove. It also shows my brother Ferdinand’s wife Thora and their firstborn son Lars.

Erik Olson → Engla Hägertz

Halmstad, June 1929
Engla,

We’ve just named ourselves: the Halmstad Group. A modest name, but six visions rest in it, tightly interwoven.

Your photograph of the stove’s reflection gave us something quiet—a surface where thoughts can land. We want to surround ourselves with such images.

Our first joint exhibition will be alongside the Halmstad Exhibition. Come, Engla. Show us what we otherwise overlook.

With respect,
Erik

P.S. Enclosed: a cubist sketch, the painting Spring Song, and a photo of the whole group gathered.

Engla Hägertz → Halmstad Group

Oskarström, July 1929
Gentlemen,

What you have created is brave—a space for what is not yet named.

Three of my pictures deal with absorption. Two of children—inward, present. The third of an adult—damaged in development, but perhaps more truthful for it.

They carry something lingering. A quiet reminder: we don’t only sink in play, but in life itself.

You have my eye—and my silence.

Engla

P.S. Enclosed are the three images. Use them, or burn them.

Sven Jonson → Engla Hägertz

Söndrum, July 1936
Dear Miss Hägertz,

You once asked how silence looks on a canvas. I wonder—how does it appear in a photograph?

Here in Söndrum the trees lean toward the water as if listening. Stellan reads aloud, Erik draws symbols in the sand. I sketch constellations again in the margins.

Your photograph Room with a Window haunts me. It feels as though someone stands just outside—breathing.

From the edge of the sea,
Sven

P.S. Enclosed: the painting Nocturnal Walk, a jug, a fruit bowl, and an old photo of us from the Gothenburg Exhibition, 1930.

Engla Hägertz → Sven Jonson

Helsingborg, August 1936
Dear Sven,

Thank you for your greeting from Söndrum. I can almost smell the pine and salt.

I belong to many groups—photographers, friends, my family. Most important are probably we siblings. My brother Harald just bought land in Tylösand, overlooking the cliffs. We’ll call the house Klipperhus.

Silence in photography? It lives where something is missing—a chair without a table, a shadow without source, a cloud seen only in the mirror.

Stars in the margins, always,
Engla

P.S. Enclosed: the photo Outlook and a picture of my family.

Stellan Mörner → Engla Hägertz

Söndrum, Summer 1937
Dear Engla,

I’m trying to paint a corridor from Esplunda—with mirrors and a cracked grandfather clock. But the canvas folds in on itself, like a butterfly wing.

Your picture of the child’s bicycle turning away… it speaks louder than anything direct.

Here is Söndrum: a circus, a séance. Last night I dreamt I was a chess piece—trapped but smiling.

Please send me something you love but no longer understand—perhaps your childhood shoes?

In theatrical confusion,
Stellan

P.S. Enclosed: a painting of our group, and a gouache with books and playing cards.

Engla Hägertz → Stellan Mörner

Arild, September 1937
Stellan—watchmaker of the invisible,

I enclose a photo of my childhood shoes. I no longer know whose they were—only that they carry someone’s memory.

Here in Arild, the fog lingers. It’s as if time sinks into the rocks.

I sometimes think all photography is spirit work. Light calls forth ghosts.

Let the corridor collapse. Perhaps an open door is enough.

Yours in reversed time,
Engla

P.S. Enclosed: the shoes and a photo of me playing tennis in Arild.

Engla Hägertz → Erik Olson

Stockholm, November 1938
Dear Erik,

Your letters read like riddles spoken by wind through old curtains. I mean that as a compliment.

If I come to Söndrum this spring—I won’t photograph you as you are, but as you appear in solitude.

In fractured light,
Engla

P.S. Enclosed: a photo of me and my sister Hedvig by a window where the light filters through.

Axel Olson → Engla Hägertz

Söndrum, June 1939
Engla—observer of reflections,

The others swam this morning. I stayed on shore and drew anchors in the sand. Always these anchors.

Your photograph—the one with the window—reminded me of a painting I did after my cataract surgery. Three boats, three perspectives: what we see, remember, imagine.

Söndrum? The wind sculpts the dunes like ribs. The pines hum.

Still anchored,
Axel

P.S. Enclosed: a self-sketch, view over the Nissan, and a beach photo with a rowboat.

Engla Hägertz → Axel Olson

Rydöbruk, July 1939
Dear Axel,

You have your anchors—I have my windows. The ones that are open, closed, and those that no longer lead anywhere.

Here in Rydöbruk, summer rests. The sluice gates move without water.

I enclose two photos of workers—as they are, with what they value. It became more real that way.

In driftwood and grain,
Engla

P.S. Photos of the workers and their world enclosed.

Waldemar Lorentzon → Engla Hägertz

Snöstorp, May 1940
Miss Hägertz,

Your photos of the workers—they reached me. In times like these, we need to show realities as they are.

I’ve painted a large canvas: Dark Mother. She holds nothing. Only her hands.

We discuss—abstraction or earth. But your photograph grounded me.

You carry sky in your lens.

Always loyal,
Waldemar

P.S. Enclosed: a photo from Mallorca 1932 and a painting of Söndrum by our colleague Sven X:et Erixon.

Engla Hägertz → Waldemar Lorentzon

Limmared, June 1940
Waldemar—painter of palms and prayers,

I believe I’ve seen your Dark Mother before—in a photo of my mother’s hands, resting over an empty bowl.

Limmared is quiet glass and old footprints. Your letter arrived with beach grass—now it rests in my window, beside a photo of frost.

Keep photographing hands. Even empty. Especially empty.

In silver and shadow,
Engla

P.S. Enclosed: a photo of working hands. Handcraft remains strong in Oskarström.

Esaias Thorén → Engla Hägertz

Söndrum, July 1942
Dear Engla,

Your photograph of the hidden subject has stayed with me—I think I see a chair. I dreamt last night it was a metronome.

We still gather here—among spruces and mist. Sometimes we are six. Sometimes fewer. I carved a head from driftwood and gave it one eye, and someone said it looked like a spy.

Could you come and photograph us—not as artists, but as birds resting between storms?

In rhythm,
Esaias

P.S. Enclosed: a gouache titled The Farewell, and an oil painting by a fellow artist from the Söndrum quarry, Felix Hatz.

Engla Hägertz → Esaias Thorén

Tylösand, August 1942
Dear Esaias,

Nothing would please me more than capturing your colony as birds—seated, ruffled, singing songs only the wind understands.

The chair you asked about was found in a doctor’s office, quiet and alone. I waited long for the light to tremble enough to tell its story.

Tell your driftwood head: I forgive it. I too have seen with only one eye, once. It taught me to listen.

See you soon, under the Söndrum sky.

Holding my breath,
Engla

P.S. Enclosed: a photo of two male friends—working, playing, enduring. And an image from Tylösand.

Waldemar Lorentzon → Engla Hägertz

Snöstorp, May 1944
Dear Engla,

During these war days, silence in Snöstorp has become more eloquent than ever. Today I painted a church without windows. No light, no insight.

I remembered your photos of workers and their worried faces. It was as if you already knew how the world would recede.

We miss your images. They’re needed now more than ever.

Kindly,
Waldemar

P.S. Enclosed: a painting of a green meadow—we must remind ourselves of light wherever we can find it. Also an older image of rest by the sea. I know how much the sea means to you.

Engla Hägertz → Waldemar Lorentzon

Oskarström, November 1944
Waldemar—painter of darkness and root threads,

It is a dark time in many ways.

One of my dear correspondents has just passed away, Hilma af Klint, whom you likely know.

I wonder: do you think Hilma would have joined you in Söndrum, had she known of you then?

With a sorrowful tone,
Engla

P.S. Enclosed: a photo of a flower—to represent the transience of life.

Erik Olson → Engla Hägertz

Paris, 1953
Dear Engla,

I write from Paris. Here, painting lives another life, yet your photo of dusty bottles on a table in Rydö still comes to mind. It has nothing to prove. It just is.

I recently painted a self-portrait where my face is partially hidden. Perhaps it is your silence I’m emulating.

We talk of exhibiting together again. I hope we’ll get to show something of yours too.

Your friend,
Erik

P.S. Enclosed: a painting called Through the Window, and a photo of two friends. Also an older image of the Mother-of-Pearl Coast in Söndrum—do you still go there often?

28. Engla Hägertz → Halmstad Group
Oskarström, May 1964
Dear friends,

I saw your latest exhibition. The colors had matured, but something still danced inside them.

I sent a photo to the gallery—of a mirror where the camera appears in the reflection. They didn’t show it. That’s alright. Some images are meant only for the one who sees them first.

I’ve now decided to close the photo studio. I took the last portrait in March, of Gospova Buvac, daughter of one of the many Czechs who came here to work at the jute factory.

You are still my mirror in color.

Warmly,
Engla

P.S. Enclosed: a photo of a boy and his best friend, his dog. Leaving the studio feels a bit like saying goodbye to a close friend.

29. Sven Jonson → Engla Hägertz
Halmstad, February 1974
Engla,

We received your last envelope. The photo with the boy and dog. It was tender, beautiful—and troubled.

I won’t display it. I’ll keep it. It feels like a greeting between moments.

We don’t speak often anymore. But when we do, it’s silent. And in that silence, you remain.

/ Sven

P.S. Enclosed: a painting I call Prelude, and a photo of us from our summer gatherings, which Axel is organizing.

Afterword: In the Space Where Art Breathes

These letters were never sent.
And yet, they speak.

They speak not only of what could have been—but of what still is possible when creative spirits are allowed to echo across time, form, and silence.

Engla Hägertz worked not for fame, but for presence. Behind her camera, she caught the flicker of a gesture, the hush of a room, the tension of an unanswered question. Her lens did not seek spectacle—it sought truth in the pause.

The Halmstad Group, restless in their geometry and dreams, painted symbols into a landscape still learning how to see them. They reached beyond the visible, threading surrealism into the soil of southern Sweden. Each canvas a threshold; each composition a kind of longing.

This fictional correspondence is not an attempt to rewrite history. It is a way of listening differently. Of asking:
What if our creative timelines are not linear—but braided, layered, co-dreamed?
What if images remember each other?

In these imagined letters, photography and painting touch fingertips. Solitude is shared. Silence becomes a medium.

You, reader, are part of that dialogue now.

So take your time.
Stand in front of a quiet photograph.
Let a shadowed brushstroke linger longer than it should.

You might hear something.
You might begin to answer.

— Novisali

Learn more

Warm thanks for the contribution by Oskarströms Hembygdsförening, and the Hägertz family for contribution with photographies, and to Mjellby Konstgård and auction houses sharing pictures of Halmstadgruppens artworks.

More about Engla Hägetz (google translated website)  EnglaHagertz.se

Details about Engla from genealogy

Read the related Letter Exchange with Hilma af Klint

About Halmstadgruppen

Find 450 digital photos of Halmstadgruppens production

About Mejllby Konstgård, part of Halmstad Museum and dedicated to Halmstadgruppen

About Novisali 

Novisali, (alias Liselotte Engstam), is besides her roles as professional board member and advisor, a multi-media artist, with a curious, explorative mind and an ambition to learn and extend art experiences to current and new audiences using both traditional and new digital mediums. More information and exhibitions can be found via Novisali.com

This blog post is also shared at the blog of www.liselotteengstam.com, with the artist name Novisali.

The post In the Silence Between Images  first appeared on Novisali.