Curated by The Reverend Dr. William J. Danaher, Rector at Christ Church Cranbrook
The Detroit Institute of Art is one of the premier art museums in the world, with hundreds of works on display. Here are five of Fr. William Danaher’s favorites, from local murals to colonial criticism of the American Revolution.
Detroit Industry Murals, Diego Rivera, 1932-1933
Location: Rivera Court
A series of Fresco paintings by Diego Rivera depicting manufacturing at the Ford Motor Company and in Detroit are masterpieces located in the heart of the city. 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.
Accused of being too sympathetic to workers’ concerns, the murals survived because of Edsel Ford, the President of the Ford Motor Company who reportedly made the argument-stopping comment, “I like them.” Such was the power of the Ford Motor Company. Later on, Ford said of the massive art piece, “I admire Rivera’s spirit. I really believe he was trying to express his idea of the spirit of Detroit.”
In addition to controversially depicting a racially integrated workforce, Detroit Industry also depicts vaccination as a messianic event, bringing material salvation to modernity.
Located on the North Wall, the image of vaccination is a deliberate evocation of the Nativity, something that also created significant controversy then, and, as we have learned, now.
Watson and the Shark, John Singleton Copely, 1782
Location: American, Level 2, West Wing
The story behind this realistic and moving painting is powerful: Brook Watson had been sent to sea at fourteen; he decided to go for a swim while his ship was docked in the shark-infested waters of Havana Harbor. The painting depicts the moment when the shark is coming by for his third and possibly final attempt to make a meal out of Watson. The men in the boat were successful in harpooning the shark and heroically rescued the swimmer. Upon returning to the ship, Watson’s left leg was amputated and he was fitted with a peg leg.
Later in life he became Lord Mayor of London and was often satirized, with his peg leg playing an important feature. This is one of three versions that Copley painted to commemorate the heroic rescue of Brook Watson.
Copley imparted a broader meaning to the scene by casting Watson’s rescue as a then-modern tale of salvation, as it was viewed by Watson, who went on to a successful business and political career and very likely commissioned the painting. The harpooner is portrayed as a secular version of Saint Michael defeating the devil or of Saint George fighting the dragon, two legends often depicted in traditional painting. The shark here incarnates evil, its open jaws recalling the gaping mouth of hell. The boat, too, appears to be modeled after those in earlier representations of the New Testament’s miraculous “draught of fishes.”
This painting is also a scathing criticism of the American Revolution. Copley was a loyalist. The dismemberment of the body in the water and the skiff that is adrift are visible symbols of the painful amputation of the American Colonies from the British Empire. The concerned African American at the apex of the painting is Copley’s rendition of the plight of Black people who will remain imprisoned in a new nation that accepts the institution of slavery. He is looking for rescue, surrounded by violence and disorder.
Noah’s Ark: Genesis, Charles McGee, 1987
Location: Level 2, South Wing
In the 1980s, McGee began to experiment with complex designs that drew from many aspects of his previous bodies of work, to create what would become his signature: patterns that dance inside the shapes of figures, animals, and organic forms. Movement is created in each piece through dynamic line work and repetition, pulsing with energy and rhythm. Keeping true to his lifelong respect for the earth, he incorporated natural elements and materials such as bean pods, soil, gypsum, and even his own dreadlocks.
The painting depicts two figures, dressed in what appears to be traditional African garb, traversing a backdrop teeming with shapes, colors, and symbols. Mostly abstract sculptural pieces sit in public spots all across the city, their jumpy lines coming together and diverging.
If McGee’s art is about anything, it’s about how symbols, shapes, and designs leap out of their immediate context into a realm of free play. In that realm, the importance of a bird or a snake is not what the bird or snake might mean, or where it originated, but about how its shape adds energy and movement to the composition as a whole. He has also said that his work is about “the power of togetherness … It’s all connected just like we are all connected.”
Blood/Sweat/Tears, Alison Saar, 2005
Location: African American, Level 2, North Wing
Alison Saar creates life-size figures that emotionally embody what it means to be human. She explores desire, anxiety, aging, and loss in expressive sculptures based on her own body and informed by her own experiences. Her figures begin as a lumber beam, which she carves with a chain saw; sometimes, as in Blood/Sweat/Tears, she covers them in a copper skin. The grief expressed by this figure is palpable. She succumbs to her sorrow, hunching her shoulders and cradling her head in her hands. The rusted nails that secure the surface copper to the wooden core trace scar-like patterns all over her body. Droplets made of cast bronze—blood, sweat and tears—cover her skin.
Such expressions of grief and suffering are universally clear, but knowledge of the recent death of Saar’s father Richard, a ceramicist and art conservator, adds a personal dimension to the title’s reference to arduous physical sacrifice.
Christ Entering Jerusalem on the Back of a Donkey, Christof Langeisen, between 1480 and 1490.
Location: European Medieval and Renaissance, Level 2, West Wing
Beginning as early as the tenth century, sculptures depicting Jesus on the back of a donkey were carried or rolled through towns across German-speaking lands to re-enact Christ’s entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Their use on this holy day lent the objects their German name: Palmesel, or “palm donkey.” Many medieval Palmesel remain in alpine regions today, where the tradition survives, offering a chance for worshippers to imagine themselves within the biblical story.
This Palmesel looks a bit worn. Its ears and the wheels that would have carried it are missing, along with one of Jesus’s feet. The touches of many hands have smoothed the donkey’s rump. Wormholes are visible across Jesus’s face, where insects bored into the wood beneath the layers of colorful paint that once enlivened the figure. Fragments of metal at the sides of his head allude to a now-lost metal halo that shone in the sun during outdoor processions. These losses and signs of wear are valuable reminders of the vital role it once played within a religious community.
What helps you imagine that fateful day when Jesus came and was proclaimed the King of the Jews? For the Christians who practiced this ritual, this was their way of closing the distance of time with the first time this entry happened – a return to the “time of origin” that was also accomplished by prayer, worship, and sacrament.
What closes this distance for you?
Fr. William Danaher is Rector at Christ Church Cranbrook.