*Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus' was a major step in Dali's paintings of that period. Here one finds for the first time, brought together and intimately mixed with previous styles, the technique of his corpuscular period. In this canvas, the figure on the banner is Gala (his wife, as a model), and the monk kneeling and holding the crucifix is Dali himself. This was the logical beginning of his historical paintings. Dali says that in this canvas he painted for the first time with an existentialist shiver: the shiver for the unity of the fatherland. Everything in it springs from the four petals of a jasmine flower exploding in an atomic cloud of creative genius. *Salvador Dali (1904-1989) - A Spanish artist renowned for 'surrealism', cubism, futurism, technical skill, precise draftsmanship, striking & bizarre images in his work. Major themes in his work include dream sequences, the subconscious, sexuality, religion, science and his closest personal relationships. He used this method to realize the dreams and imagination he had in his mind, changing the real world the way he wanted and not necessarily what it was. Dal�'s artistic repertoire included painting, graphic arts, film, sculpture, design, photography, fiction, poetry, autobiography, essays and criticism.