[4] By winning in international exhibitions through La barca de Aqueronte and his other paintings Las Virgenes Cristianas Expuestas al Populacho and Adios del Sol during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Hidalgo's "mark of having arrived as a painter" and his place in Philippine art and the "popular mind" became secured.

[1][2] The protagonist of the painting is the boatman of classical mythology named Charon,[1][2] who is depicted as the personification of the merciless harvester of condemned souls with "eyes of coal" glaring forebodingly from the shadows at the boarding commuters.

An offset on the left side of the image is the "diagonal disturbance" composed of plummeting and helpless unclothed bodies heading into Charon’s water vessel.

The “diagonal movement” on the left-side of the painting is described to be subdued shades of pink and blue in "strong tension" with the right side of the work of art.

Hidalgo made charcoal studies of Charon that are representative of the divine and nude Greco-Roman heroes molded in the Renaissance style.