Francis Berger
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Souls On The Banks Of The Acheron

8/24/2020

10 Comments

 
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I have a weak spot for paintings depicting classical or mythological scenes and am familiar with most of the major works in this genre, but I had not heard of Hungarian painter Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl and had not, as far as I can remember, encountered any of his work until yesterday. 

Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl (1860 -1933) is best known for his renditions of mythological and historical scenes. Born into a Jewish family in Temesvár, Hungary (today Timisoara, Romania), Hirémy-Hirschl made a name for himself as an artist in Vienna, Austria where he spent the formative years of his career. Nevertheless, when Gustav Klimt and the Vienna Secessionist movement broke onto the scene, Hirémy-Hirschl chose to move to Rome where he dropped the Hirschl from his name and continued painting historical and mythological scenes. Hirémy spent the remaining 35 years of his life in the Italian capital, perpetually inspired by the architectural remnants of Roman civilization.

Many of Hirémy's paintings have been lost, but among those that have survived is his Souls on the Banks of the Acheron (also translated as Souls on the Acheron or Souls Waiting on the Banks of the Acheron) in which he offers his rendition of the dreaded river of woe the souls of the dead had to cross before entering the underworld.

Hirémy is often classified as a Symbolist painter and his Souls on the Banks of the Archeron is a powerful example of the inspiration behind symbolist art. Drawing upon the mystical tendencies of Romanticism, Hirémy crafts a haunting scene that includes familiar mythological elements depicting the underworld blended with what I would describe as nightmarish, late nineteenth-century thanatophobia.

I won't wade into any sort of analysis of the painting here, but I will say this - it has made a deep impression on me. I find myself wondering why I had not encountered it before. Conversely, I wonder why I have encountered this fin de siècle painting now - in the very depths of our current fin de siècle times.

Note added: Click on the image to examine the painting in a larger format - well worth doing!
10 Comments
Michelle
8/25/2020 02:39:04

I wish you hadn't added that note at the end. I did click on it and examined it. Haunting is the right word and I can't unsee it. That boy sitting is the same size as my son right now. Another reminder of the fight we are in to save our souls and how hard the fight is.

It also reminds me of a conversation my husband and I had just yesterday about how progressivism has perverted everything it's gotten it's hands on including art.

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Francis Berger
8/25/2020 09:23:14

@ Michelle - I have a young son as well, so I know where you are coming from. Nevertheless, as I mentioned to Bruce below, some comfort can be found in the fact that the children seem at peace with their fate. Unlike the other souls, who all seem desperate to return to the sunlit world, the children appear calm and accepting. The transition from life to death does not seem to alarm them as much as it has alarmed the adult souls.

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bruce charlton
8/25/2020 08:28:44

@Frank - Unlike you, I have something of an aversion for 'clssical subjects' in painting; but I find this particular painting very striking and powerful.

The sightless eyes of the dead souls seems exactly right - they seem to be 'demented' - they don't know themselves, don't fully know what they are doing - yet they have sufficient 'animal' wits to know their predicament (and what awaits) and appeal to Hades.

Hades seems to look very 'cool' in a self-consciously 'modern' kind of way - very like Tom Hiddleston's Loki in the Marvel movies!

The composition is also arresting and effective - the bunching of figures to the right, emptiness to the left.

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bruce charlton
8/25/2020 08:58:31

My son - who knows a bit more about these things than I do - suggests that the divine figure is Hermes, not Hades - because he has the winged helmet and sandals, and caduceus (double snaked) staff that are of the Herme's iconography.

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Francis Berger
8/25/2020 09:18:51

@ Bruce - Yes, your son is correct. The divine figure is indeed Hermes. Hades is the god of the underworld. I mistakenly used the word Hades to as a substitute for the underworld itself. I have changed this in the post to avoid confusing other readers.

Francis Berger
8/25/2020 09:11:22

@ Bruce - I fully agree with your observation about the demented, sightless souls being exactly right. All of the shades know their predicament and most seem horrified by the prospect of accepting the fate that awaits them. This is intriguing because none of the souls waiting on the banks of Acheron have been judged yet. It is not outlandish to assume some of the souls will be judged favorably and enter some form of 'heaven.' Despite this, almost all appear to want to go back to their mortal lives. The only exception I can spot are the children and the elderly, who do not appeal to the god and appear to have accepted whatever judgement awaits them (the children are uncharacteristically docile and most of the elderly are still covered in their funeral shrouds).

The haloed god is Hermes, who in this painting fulfills his role as a psychopomp by guiding the souls to the underworld. He is indeed 'cool' in a modern sort of way. He is completely detached from the pleas and appears steadfast in his determination to do his job. It is worth noting, Hermes was not a judge of souls, merely a guide, which might explain his seeming indifference. Then again, he may feel some sympathy for the shades, but his role in their fates leaves him severely constricted.

I read up a little on the painting and, to my surprise, discovered the left is not empty at all, but contains the faint and distant figure of Charon approaching with his skiff. This is what Hermes is focusing his attention on. It is also what has driven the souls to hysteria (once they cross the Acheron, the souls are confined to the underworld forever). As I mentioned above, I only became aware of this detail after I read up on the painting.

Oddly enough, this depiction of death within the context of ancient Greek religion, tinged by the nineteenth-century angst I detect in the overall mood of the painting, inspired me to reflect upon my own Christian assumptions about death and everlasting life. Needless to say, an entirely different image manifested in my mind.

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Hristina Beeva
8/25/2020 13:20:52

I've looked at this picture closely in a printed book. Hermes has descended to Hades to take Persephone, I think this is one of the main stories. My feeling is this picture stands as a pagan precursor to the Harrowing of Hell, with the caduceus a precursor to the cross, and then there is a very Christian-like halo, not typical of Greek gods. Like an echo of the event, only earlier in time. Hermes also assisted Orpheus in his attempt to rescue Euridice from Hades. But those were special pleas, not the liberation of the entire population of Hades. So the story is pagan, but the picture's vibe leans to Christian. Or more like the artistic vision links the pagan past with Christianity's answer to the question of souls and the afterlife.

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Francis Berger
8/25/2020 21:24:24

@ Hristina - Thanks for the insightful observations. I agree with your assessment of the halo. It caught my attention right away. It fascinates me that Hirémy chose to add this detail to Hermes. At first I thought Hirémy did it to draw attention to the fact that Hermes is a god - to use symbolism a European viewer would understand. But the more I thought about this, the more I realized the halo would be superfluous for this reason. Any cultured European would immediately recognize Hermes from his helmet and caduceus. So there is definitely more to the halo than meets the eye.

Unfortunately, I don't know all that much about Hirémy as I only discovered him a few days ago. On the surface, he seems to fit the definition of a fin de siecle cosmopolitan Jew. Like many European Jews of that era, he may have been secular. Or perhaps he became a Christian. I know he was buried in a Protestant cemetery in Rome, but that may not mean much. I'll have to read up on him to learn what his attitude to Christianity was.

Regardless, he certainly captured what I perceive to be the nineteenth century Europe's growing doubts about the afterlife, which I connect to weakening of Christianity as a cultural force on the continent.

Hirémy created a triptych called Sic. Transit in which he visually documents the collapse of Rome and the subsequent rise of Christianity. I haven't studied it in much detail yet, but it does clues as to how he may have felt about Christianity in general.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Sic_transit_by_Adolf_Hir%C3%A9my-Hirschl

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Howard Sutherland
8/25/2020 20:53:25

Thank you for posting this image. Now I know about a - to me - new painter and painting. I’m learning quite a bit about Hungarian painters thanks to this blog. I’ve only been in Hungary once, and you remind me just how lightly I scratched the surface (my visit was confined to Budapest and a short stretch of the Danube upstream, just after the Soviet Union had imploded).
The image is evocative: As soon as I saw it, Rachmaninoff’s Isle of the Dead started playing in my head!

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Francis Berger
8/25/2020 21:29:01

@ Howard - Hirémy is new to me as well. He seems to be a somewhat forgotten artist. From the little I have read of him I have gleaned that he was essentially eclipsed by Gustav Klimt. Hirémy's work sank into relative obscurity by the middle of the twentieth century.

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