Charon by Dor 1857 in orange ink on blue paper

Description: English Gustave Dors illustration to Dantes Inferno Plate IX Canto III Arrival of Charon And lo towards us coming in a boat An old man hoary with the hair of eld Crying Woe unto you ye souls depraved Longfellows translation And lo toward us in a bark Comes an old man hoary white with eld Crying Woe to you wicked spirits Carys translationFranais Illustration par Gustave Dor de lenfer de Dante La Divine Comdie Planche IX Chant III Larrive de Caron L je vis savancer vers nous dans un esquif Un vieillard aux cheveux aussi blancs que la neige Qui criait Gare vous pervers esprits damns enwikipediaorgwikiFileGustaveDorDanteAlighieriInfernoPlate9CantoIIICharonjpgAnd sadly it was Dantes Inferno that is responsible for Hollywoods ridiculous idea that Hades is the devil and his realm is the Hell While in Christian mythology largely influenced by Dante Hell is the place of punishment for the wicked in ancient Greek mythology Hades was the place where everyone moved to after they died with the Elysium for the best Tartarus for the worst and Asphodel Meadows for the ordinary The idea of Charon transporting the wicked to Inferno is therefore absurd as he was transporting all the dead to whatever their destination was That said Dor did a great job producing this illustration so I am reproducing it here for its artistic merits

By: AdamStanislav

Date: 2016-06-22

Download

Large PNG 2400px

Medium PNG 800px

Small PNG 300px

Javascript is needed to download PNG's.


Charon by Dor 1857 in orange ink on blue paper sourced from Openclipart is licensed under CC0 1.0

* Note: Date might not match original source and might be an educated guess.