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{{Short description|Painting by Joachim Patinir}}
{{Infobox Painting
| image_file=Crossing the River Styx.jpg
| image_size=400px
| title=Landscape with Charon Crossing the Styx
| artist=[[Joachim Patinir]]
| year=c. 1515–1524
| medium=[[Oil painting|Oil on wood]]
| height_metric=64
| width_metric=103
| metric_unit=cm
| imperial_unit=in
| museum=[[Museo del Prado]]
| city=[[Madrid]]
}}

'''''Landscape with Charon Crossing the Styx''''' is an oil on wood painting by the Flemish [[Northern Renaissance]] artist [[Joachim Patinir]]. Dating to c. 1515–1524, it is now in the [[Museo del Prado]], in [[Madrid]].

''Landscape with Charon Crossing Styx'' fits into common Northern Renaissance and early [[Mannerism|Mannerist]] trends of art. The 16th century witnessed a new era for painting in [[Germany]] and the [[Netherlands]] that combined influences from local traditions and foreign influences. Many artists, including Patinir, traveled to [[Italy]] to study and these travels provided new ideas, particularly concerning representations of the natural world. Patinir's religious subjects, therefore, incorporate precise observation and naturalism with fantastic landscapes inspired by the northern traditions of Bosch.<ref>Robert A. Koch, ''Joachim Patinir'', Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1968 (ISBN 978-0-691-03826-1)</ref>

==Iconography==
It depicts the classical subject related by [[Virgil]] in his ''Aeneid'' (book 6, line 369) and [[Dante]] in the ''Inferno'' (canto 3, line 78) at the centre of the picture within the [[Christianity|Christian]] traditions of the [[Last Judgment]] and the ''[[Ars moriendi]]''. The larger figure in the boat is [[Charon (mythology)|Charon]], who transports the souls of the dead to the gates of [[Greek_underworld|Hades]]. The passenger in the boat, too minute to distinguish his expressions, is a human soul deciding between [[Heaven]], to his right (the viewer's left), or [[Hell]], to his left. The river [[Styx]] divides the painting down the centre. It is one of the four rivers of the underworld that passes through the deepest part of hell. On the painting's left side is the fountain of [[Paradise]], the spring from which the river [[Lethe]] flows through Heaven.

On the right side of the composition is Patinir's vision of Hell, drawing largely on [[Hieronymus Bosch|Boschian]] influences. He adapts a description of [[Hades]], in which, according to the [[Greeks|Greek]] writer Pausanias, one of the gates was located at the southern end of the [[Peloponnesus]], in an inlet still visible on the [[Cape Matapan]]. In front of the gates is [[Cerberus]], a three-headed dog, who guards the entrance of the gate and frightens all the potential souls who enter into Hades. The soul in the boat ultimately chooses his destiny by looking toward Hell and ignoring the angel on the river-bank in Paradise that beckons him to the more difficult path to Heaven.<ref>Robert A. Koch, ''Joachim Patinir'', Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1968 (ISBN 978-0-691-03826-1)</ref><ref>Alejandro Vergara (ed.), ''Patinir'', studies and critical catalogue, Madrid, Museo National del Prado, 2007, pp 150-163 (Spanish) (ISBN 978-84-8480-119-1)</ref>

==Composition and colour==
Patinir utilised a ''[[Weltlandschaft]]'' ("world landscape") composition with a three-colour scheme typical of his work, moving from brown in the foreground, to bluish-green, to pale blue in the background). This format, which Patiner is widely acknowledged as popularising, provides a bird's-eye view over an expansive landscape. Furthermore, the painting uses colour to visibly depict heaven and hell, good and evil. To the viewer's left is a heavenly place with bright blue skies, crystal blue rivers with a luminous fountain and angels accenting the grassy hills. On the far right of the painting is a dark sky engulfing Hell and the hanged figures on its gate. Fires blaze in the hills. The foreground of the painting consists of brown rocks in Heaven and brown burnt trees in Hell.

In the middle-ground is the river and the grasslands in bright hues of blue and green. The background, which is cut off by the horizon line of the darker blue river, is a pale blue sky highlighted with white and gray clouds. This compositional form is applied here by the crowded left and right sides bracketed by hills, which pushes the viewer's eye into the open space in the middle and reinforces that the men in the boat are the main focus of the painting.<ref>Robert A. Koch, ''Joachim Patinir'', Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1968 (ISBN 978-0-691-03826-1)</ref><ref>Alejandro Vergara (ed.), ''Patinir'', studies and critical catalogue, Madrid, Museo National del Prado, 2007, pp 150-163 (Spanish) (ISBN 978-84-8480-119-1)</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{Museo del Prado}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Landscape with Charon Crossing the Styx}}
[[Category:1510s paintings]]
[[Category:Paintings of Greek myths]]
[[Category:Paintings about death]]
[[Category:Landscape paintings]]
[[Category:Paintings in the Museo del Prado by Flemish artists]]
[[Category:Maritime paintings]]
[[Category:Rivers in art]]
[[Category:Paintings by Joachim Patinir]]
[[Category:Paintings based on the Aeneid]]
[[Category:Cerberus]]

Landscape with Charon Crossing the Styx - Revision history

imported>The Eloquent Peasant: /* Iconography */ italics