Charon Crossing the Styx

1520–24

Oil on panel, 64 × 103 cm · Museo del Prado, Madrid

Patinir, a pioneer of landscape painting in Antwerp, turns the river of the dead into a moral choice. It probably belonged to Philip II and was saved from the Alcázar fire of 1734.

The picture divides into three bands: paradise with angels at left, the dark Styx in the middle, hell at right.
Cerberus guards the gate of hell on the right.
The small soul in Charon’s boat turns, in profile, toward the easy road to damnation.

Charon the ferryman carried the souls of the dead across the Styx for a coin. Patinir blends this pagan image with Christian heaven and hell.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain