art, Charon

How Small We Are

by Veronica Childe
Joachim Patinir, “Landscape with Charon Crossing the Styx”, oil on wood, Flemish, 1515-1524. At the Prado Museum.

Psychopomp Charon, ferryman of the dead, is depicted as a huge figure compared to the human soul he is transporting across the river Styx, which separates the land of the living from the underworld, Hades. How small we are compared to the gods!