The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus

In the depths of a sustained fascination with Roman Catholic mysticism, Salvador Dali found in the story of America a new way to explore old themes. Monumental in size, the four metre tall canvas depicts Christopher Columbus as an adolescent boy in classical robes, his youthfulness an analogy for the bright future of the country before him. The Virgin Mary floats above him, her robes entwining with the flag he plants on the ground, declaring this a new world for the church. Mary is, as was so often the case in Dali's later work, modelled closely off his wife Gala. Dali himself appears in the background as a kneeling monk, holding this flag of his native Catalan. For all its surrealism, the painting is abundant with classicism, and particuarly reminiscent of Dali's hero, the Spanish painter Diego Velazquez. Like so many renaissance works, the work rewards deep looking, each new vignette a metaphor, as Dali threads a needle through Catholicism, Spanish History, America, and his own experience as an explorer searching for salvation and truth.