Salvador Dali’s “Christ of St. John of the Cross” has evoked admiration, criticism and controversy ever since its first exhibition in 1952. Describing this artwork as the summary of all of his previous aesthetic experiments, Dali (1904 – 1989) based this painting upon a drawing from Saint John of the Cross which inspired a “cosmic” dream in which Dali saw Christ as the nucleus of the universe. Known for his hallucinatory images, Dali was a pioneering Surrealist who also worked in Classical and Impressionist styles, and created oils, watercolors, sculptures, films, photos and performance pieces.