Le Passage de la rivière 1860 - 1870

Camille Corot painted "Le Passage de la rivière," showing us a scene of figures crossing a river in a boat. This motif is very ancient, going back to antiquity and continuing through the Middle Ages. Rivers in art carry a deep symbolic charge as liminal spaces representing transition, journeys, and the passage of time. Across cultures, the image of crossing water appears in myths and dreams, suggesting profound psychological and spiritual thresholds. Think of the River Styx from the ancient Greek world, a boundary between life and death, ferried by the boatman Charon. This is very often repeated as the trope of "crossing the river." In the Middle Ages, similar imagery of water crossing can be found, only that the symbolism changes and transforms into one about new beginnings. By the time Corot painted "Le Passage de la rivière," this scene may have lost some of its previous deep symbolic and religious meaning, but the echo remains. The symbolism, though changed, still resonates with our collective subconscious.