The Poem of the Soul: The Wrong Path

In the disturbing architecture of this scene, two adolescents climb a staircase under the inquisitorial gaze of a seated old woman and characters wearing black teachers' robes, standing in a row of niches. This painting was one of a series of eighteen paintings in the same format, completed by a second series of sixteen drawings illustrating a poem of more than 2,800 verses. It took from 1835 to 1855 to produce the eighteen pictures exhibited in this room.

The Poem of the Soul was designed as a religious work telling the mystical story of a soul. The artist believed that a painting should convince the viewer using scenes replete with symbols. Here, black symbolizes the dangers of lay teachings, which threaten the Christian faith of the poem’s two protagonists.