Collect this large and historically important lithograph by Salvador Dali titled The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus.
This piece is an homage to Dalí's Spain. It combines Spanish history, religion, art, and myth into a unified whole. It was commissioned for Huntington Hartford's Gallery of Modern Art on Columbus Circle in New York. At this time, some Catalan historians were claiming that Columbus was actually from Catalonia, not Italy, making the discovery all the more relevant for Dalí, who was also from this region of Spain. Dalí's inspiration for this work was The Surrender of Breda, another painting by Velazquez.
Dalí borrows the spears from that painting and places them on the right hand of his work. Within these spears, Dalí has painted the image of a crucified Christ, which was based on a drawing by the Spanish mystic Saint John. The banner that Columbus is holding bears the likeness of Dalí's wife, Gala. She appears as a saint, suggesting that she is Dalí's muse and that she is responsible for his own "discovery of America," where he captured the attention of the world through her encouragement.
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Artist Bio:
Salvador Dali is undoubtedly one of the greatest pioneers of the surrealist style of painting. His work was groundbreaking and influenced hundreds of painters that came after him. According to critics, Dali’s art takes the viewer to the inner part of the subconscious, in a surreal world that features many fantastic images. Dali influenced many prominent artists and sculptors to move out from the traditional and repetitive styles of creation. So much he did that, that many art scholars around the world say that Dali was one of the major figures of aesthetics of the 20th century. Dali born on 11 May in 1904 in Figueres, Spain. From his childhood days, he was very arrogant and intelligent. His relationship with his father was not very good, while his mother always used to praise him. When he somehow came to know that his family believed him as the reincarnation of his dead elder brother, his artistic scene turned towards a transcendental way. That incident helped him to become a surrealist artist. Dali’s parents used to praise his talent. They made him a studio and admitted him into a drawing school in 1916. He was very irregular in school. His father once arranged an exhibition for him in 1919. In 1922 he was admitted into a famous art institute in Madrid. There he started to learn cubism and dadaism. The academy suspended him in 1923 for his association with anti-establishment activities, though he was not associated with politics that much. Although he returned to his academy in 1926, it suspended him permanently for his cynic outlook about his teachers. After that incident, Dali traveled to Paris and met Pablo Picasso. He left the classical style and inspired by Picasso. His works began to become popular. His surrealistic style came to a more outstanding point. Though he supported Franco as a ruler of Spain, he stayed in the USA during the second world war. After the war ended, Dali returned to Spain and began to experiment more inventive works which influenced the later pop arts. ‘The Elephants’, ‘Premonition of Civil War, ‘Metamorphosis of Narcissus’, ‘Spider of the Evening’, ‘The Temptation of St. Anthony’ etc are his ageless works of art. Salvador Dali died on 23 January 1989. His grave is in his hometown Figueres.
