The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus

1959 painting by Salvador Dalí

The Discovery of America By Christopher Columbus

Artist| Salvador Dalí
Year| 1959
Medium| oil on canvas
Dimensions| 410 cm × 284 cm (161.4 in × 111.8 in)
Location| Salvador Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida

The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus is a painting by the Spanish artist Salvador Dalí, begun in 1958 and finished in 1959.[1] It is over 14 feet tall and over 9 feet wide (410 x 284 cm; 161.4 x 111.8 in),[1] one in a series of large paintings Dalí did during this era.

## Description

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This work is an ambitious homage to Dalí's Spain. It combines Spanish history, religion, art, and myth into a unified whole. It was commissioned for Huntington Hartford for the opening of his Museum Gallery of Modern Art in New York's 2 Columbus Circle. 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.

The eponymous painting deals with Christopher Columbus's first landing in the New World. It depicts the event metaphorically rather than aiming for historical accuracy. Columbus is depicted not as a middle-aged mariner, but as an adolescent boy in a classical robe to symbolize America as a young continent with its best years ahead of it.

Dalí, in a period of intense interest in Roman Catholic mysticism at the time, symbolically portrayed Columbus bringing Christianity and the true church to a new world as a great and holy accomplishment.

Gala Dalí, the painter's wife, whom he often depicted as the Virgin Mary, poses for the role of The Blessed Virgin (or according to some commentators Saint Helena) on the banner in the right hand of Columbus. She appears as a Saint, suggesting that she is Dalí's muse and that she is responsible for his own, "Discovery of America".

Dalí painted himself in the background as a kneeling monk holding a crucifix.[1] Dalí's belief that Columbus was Catalan is represented by the incorporation of the old Catalan flag.

The painting contains numerous references to the works of Diego Velázquez (specifically The Surrender of Breda), a Spanish painter who had died 300 years earlier, and who influenced both Dalí's painting and his moustache. Dalí borrows the spears from that painting and places them on the right hand side 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, St. John.

In the bottom center of the painting, on the beach a few steps in front of Columbus, is the bumpy and pockmarked brown sphere of a sea urchin with a curious halo-like ring around it.

## Current status

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The painting now hangs in the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida which provides a permanent home for the collection of A. Reynolds Morse & Eleanor R. Morse.

## See also

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* List of works by Salvador Dalí
* A Thousand and One... Americas (television series)

## References

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1. ^ a b c Russell Duncan; Clara Juncker (2004). Transnational America: Contours of Modern US Culture. p. 131\. ISBN 8772899581.

## External links

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* The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus at the Salvador Dalí Museum

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Salvador Dalí

List of works

Paintings|

* List of works
* Landscape Near Figueras (1910)
* Vilabertran (1913)
* Cabaret Scene (1922)
* Portrait of My Father (1925)
* Young Woman at a Window (1925)
* The Basket of Bread (1926)
* Apparatus and Hand (1927)
* The Lugubrious Game (1929)
* The First Days of Spring (1929)
* The Accommodations of Desire (1929)
* The Great Masturbator (1929)
* The Invisible Man (1929–1932)
* The Persistence of Memory (1931)
* The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used as a Table (1934)
* Morphological Echo (1934–1936)
* A Chemist Lifting with Extreme Precaution the Cuticle of a Grand Piano (1936)
* Couple with Their Heads Full of Clouds (1936, 1937)
* Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) (1936)
* The Burning Giraffe (1937)
* Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937)
* Swans Reflecting Elephants (1937)
* Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach (1938)
* The Enigma of Hitler (1939)
* Shirley Temple, The Youngest, Most Sacred Monster of the Cinema in Her Time (1939)
* The Face of War (1940)
* Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire (1940)
* Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man (1943)
* Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening (1944)
* Basket of Bread (1945)
* The Apotheosis of Homer (1945)
* The Temptation of St. Anthony (1946)
* The Elephants (1948)
* Cartel de Don Juan Tenorio (1949)
* Leda Atomica (1949)
* The Madonna of Port Lligat (1949)
* Christ of Saint John of the Cross (1951)
* Galatea of the Spheres (1952)
* The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (1952–1954)
* The Colossus of Rhodes (1954)
* Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) (1954)
* Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity (1954)
* The Sacrament of the Last Supper (1955)
* Living Still Life (1956)
* The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus (1958–59)
* The Ecumenical Council (1959–60)
* Galacidalacidesoxyribonucleicacid (1963)
* La Gare de Perpignan (1965)
* Tuna Fishing (1966–67)
* The Hallucinogenic Toreador (1968–1970)
* La Toile Daligram (1972)
* Dalí Seen from the Back Painting Gala from the Back Eternalised by Six Virtual Corneas Provisionally Reflected by Six Real Mirrors (1972–1973)
* Lincoln in Dalivision (1977)
* The Swallow's Tail (1983)

Painting series|

* The Seven Lively Arts (1944; 1956)

Other artworks|

* Lobster Telephone (1936)
* Lobster dress (1937)
* Mae West Lips Sofa (1937)
* Champagne Standard Lamps (1938)
* Rainy Taxi (1938)
* A Logician Devil (1951)

Writings|

* Giraffes on Horseback Salad (1937)
* The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí (1942)
* Dali's Mustache (1954) (with Philippe Halsman)
* Être Dieu (1985)

Films|

* Un Chien Andalou (1929)
* L'Age d'Or (1930)
* Spellbound (1945, dream sequence)
* Destino (1946, completed 2003)

Set design
and costumes|

* Mariana Pineda (1927 production)

Museums|

* Dalí Theatre and Museum (Dalí·Jewels)
* Gala Dalí Castle House-Museum
* Salvador Dalí House Museum
* Salvador Dalí Museum
* Dalí Paris
* Dalí Universe
* Morohashi Museum of Modern Art

Related|

* Gala Dalí (wife)
* Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation
* Paranoiac-critical method
* Salvador Dalí and dance
* Chupa Chups
* Dalí Atomicus (1948 photograph)
* Salvador Dalí (1966 film)
* The Death of Salvador Dali (2005 film)
* Little Ashes (2008 film)
* Midnight in Paris (2011 film)
* Dalíland (2022 film)
* "Salvador Dalí" (song)
* 2919 Dali (asteroid)
* Dali crater
* Salvador Dalí Desert
* Dalí cross

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