Detroit: Vacation Spot for History Lovers (Part 1)

     We recently took our first big post-pandemic vacation, and we decided to visit two cities that we had never visited before: Detroit and Milwaukee.  Detroit and Milwaukee?!? Well, we had never been to Detroit before, and it has long been on our list because of the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, and a fellow Histocrat had visited Milwaukee just prior to the pandemic and raved about it.

    We flew into Detroit and immediately went to the Detroit Institute of Arts ( https://dia.org/ ), which was quite a pleasant surprise. Honestly, we weren't expecting much, but it turned out to be a wonderful institution, and we could have spent more time there if we had it.  The Museum has a very eclectic and far-ranging collection including works and artifacts from every inhabited continent and going back thousands of years.  There's ancient Greek and Roman, Native American, African, Asian, Renaissance, Modern, Medieval --- something for everybody.  

    There were a few things I found particularly interesting. One area of interest for me was "the weird." Interspersed throughout the museum were works that were just plain unique and wonderfully weird, things that I had never seen before, weird and grotesque faces, let's say "unusual" looking children, etc. 

"Africa and Europe", porcelain, !700s

"The Nightmare", 1781 Henry Fuseli

        There is also an amazing collection of European sterling silverware and porcelain ware that once graced the most elaborate and opulent dinner tables of the 1700s and 1800s. In one of the galleries, there is an interesting and unique display showcasing this collection. A small table for four is set up as if for a dinner party and the table serves as a screen showing a video of the table being "dressed" or set for a multiple course dinner.

Turkey Soup Tureen

        One of the most popular exhibits at the Detroit Institute of Arts is the Diego Rivera murals. "The Detroit Industry Murals (1932–1933) are a series of frescoes by the Mexican artist Diego Rivera, consisting of twenty-seven panels depicting industry at the Ford Motor Company and in Detroit. Together they surround the interior Rivera Court in the Detroit Institute of Arts. Painted between 1932 and 1933, they were considered by Rivera to be his most successful work. On April 23, 2014, the Detroit Industry Murals were designated by the Department of Interior as a National Historic Landmark.

The two main panels on the North and South walls depict laborers working at Ford Motor Company's River Rouge Plant. Other panels depict advances made in various scientific fields, such as medicine and new technology. The series of murals, taken as a whole, expresses the idea that all actions and ideas are one." (Wikipedia)  The murals are really fantastic.

    

    The Detroit Institute of Arts has over 65,000 objects in its collection, and we just scratched its surface.  There is so much more to see. If you find yourself in Detroit, I highly recommend a visit.

(Part 2 will be about our visits to The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village.)