Detroit Industry Murals are the frescoes

Fresco

Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...

 by Mexican

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 artist Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera

Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...

. It is a series of twenty-seven panels depicting industry at the Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...

. Together they surround the Rivera Court in the Detroit Institute of Arts

Detroit Institute of Arts

The Detroit Institute of Arts is a renowned art museum in the city of Detroit. In 2003, the DIA ranked as the second largest municipally owned museum in the United States, with an art collection valued at more than one billion dollars...

. Painted between 1932 and 1933, it was considered by Rivera himself to be his most successful work.

The two main panel on the North and South walls depict laborers working at Ford Motor Company's

Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...

 River Rouge Plant

River Rouge Plant

The Ford River Rouge Complex is a Ford Motor Company automobile factory complex located in Dearborn, Michigan, along the Rouge River, upstream from its confluence with the Detroit River at Zug Island...

. Other panels depict other advances made in fields of science, such as medicine and new technology. The entire mural as a whole encompasses the idea that all actions and ideas are one.

Notoriety

Even before the murals were made, there had been controversy surrounding Rivera's Marxist philosophy. Critics viewed them as Marxist propaganda. When the murals were completed, the Detroit Institute for the Arts invited various clergymen to comment. Catholic and Episcopalian clergy condemned the murals for supposed "blasphemy." The Detroit News

The Detroit News

The Detroit News is one of the two major newspapers in the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan. The paper began in 1873, when it rented space in the rival Free Press's building. The News absorbed the Detroit Tribune on February 1, 1919, the Detroit Journal on July 21, 1922, and on November 7, 1960,...

 protested that they were "vulgar" and "unamerican." As a result of the controversy, 10,000 people visited the museum on a single Sunday, and the budget for it was eventually raised.

One panel on the North wall displays a Christ

Christ

Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...

-like child figure with golden hair reminiscent of a halo. Flanking it on the right is a horse (rather than the donkey of Christian tradition); on the left is an ox. Directly below are several sheep, an animal often part of the traditional Nativity which in some cases is intended as a symbol of Christ as Agnus Dei or "Lamb of God". A doctor fills the role of Joseph

Saint Joseph

Saint Joseph is a figure in the Gospels, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the earthly father of Jesus Christ ....

 and a nurse that of Mary; together they are administering the child a vaccination

Vaccination

Vaccination is the administration of antigenic material to stimulate the immune system of an individual to develop adaptive immunity to a disease. Vaccines can prevent or ameliorate the effects of infection by many pathogens...

. In the background three scientists, like biblical Magi

Biblical Magi

The Magi Greek: μάγοι, magoi), also referred to as the Wise Men, Kings, Astrologers, or Kings from the East, were a group of distinguished foreigners who were said to have visited Jesus after his birth, bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh...

, are engaged in what appears to be a research experiment. This part of the fresco is clearly a modern take on traditional images of the holy family

Holy Family

The Holy Family consists of the Child Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and Saint Joseph.The Feast of the Holy Family is a liturgical celebration in the Roman Catholic Church in honor of Jesus of Nazareth, his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and his foster father, Saint Joseph, as a family...

, but some critics interpret it as parody

Parody

A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

 rather than homage

Homage

Homage is a show or demonstration of respect or dedication to someone or something, sometimes by simple declaration but often by some more oblique reference, artistic or poetic....

.

At its unveiling the panel so offended some members of Detroit's religious community that they demanded it be destroyed, but due to support from commissioner Edsel Ford

Edsel Ford

Edsel Bryant Ford , son of Henry Ford, was born in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He was president of Ford Motor Company from 1919 until his death in 1943.-Life and career:...

 and the then director of the DIA it remains in place today. During the reactionary McCarthy

Eugene McCarthy

Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy was an American politician, poet, and a long-time member of the United States Congress from Minnesota. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the U.S. Senate from 1959 to 1971.In the 1968 presidential election, McCarthy was the first...

 era of the 1950s, the DIA erected a sign above the entrance to the Rivera Court that read:

"Rivera's politics and his publicity seeking are detestable. But let's get the record straight on what he did here. He came from Mexico to Detroit, thought our mass production industries and our technology wonderful and very exciting, painted them as one of the great achievements of the twentieth century. This came after the debunking twenties when our artists and writers found nothing worthwhile in America and worst of all in America was the Middle West.
Rivera saw and painted the significance of Detroit as a world city. If we are proud of this city's achievements, we should be proud of these paintings and not lose our heads over what Rivera is doing in Mexico today.

Rivera depicts the workers as in harmony with their machines and highly productive. This view reflects both Karl Marx

Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...

's begrudging admiration for the high productivity of capitalism and the wish of Edsel Ford, who funded the project, that the Ford motor plant be depicted favorably. Rivera depicted byproducts from the ovens being made into fertilizer and Henry Ford

Henry Ford

Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry...

leading a trade-school engineering class.

External links

• A high resolution panoramic view of the murals can be seen at Rivera Court by Synthescape.
• http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103337403