Charon's Obol - Art of The Modern Era

Art of The Modern Era

Although Charon has been a popular subject of art, particularly in the 19th century, the act of payment is less often depicted. An exception is the Charon and Psyche of John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, exhibited ca. 1883. The story of Cupid and Psyche found several expressions among the Pre-Raphaelite artists and their literary peers, and Stanhope, while mourning the death of his only child, produced a number of works dealing with the afterlife. His Psyche paintings were most likely based on the narrative poem of William Morris that was a retelling of the version by Apuleius. In Stanhope’s vision, the ferryman is a calm and patriarchal figure more in keeping with the Charon of the archaic Greek lekythoi than the fearsome antagonist often found in Christian-era art and literature.

The contemporary artist Bradley Platz extends the theme of Charon’s obol as a viatical food in his oil-on-canvas work Charon and the Shades (2007). In this depiction, Charon is a hooded, faceless figure of Death; the transported soul regurgitates a stream of gold coins while the penniless struggle and beg on the shores. The painting was created for a show in which artists were to bring together a mythological figure and a pop-culture icon, chosen randomly. The “soul” in Platz’s reinterpretation is the “celebutante” Nicole Richie “as a general symbol for the modern celebrity and wealth,” notes the artist: “She is represented dry and emaciated, having little physical beauty left but a wealth of gold” which she purges from her mouth.