Detroit Institute of Art

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Over Thanksgiving, my family went to do a day in Detroit.  We started with a delicious lunch at Slow's and then headed over to the DIA to go to the joint special exhibit, Monet: Framing Life and Church: A Painter's Pilgrimage.  

 Monet really broke with tradition when he started painting in the outdoors.  It was really quite revolutionary.  

 

I always enjoy learning about the relationships that the artists had with one another.  In the picture below, you can see Renoir painting Monet.  Monet also has many paintings of this exact garden and landscape.

Renoir

Monet

After the Monet paintings, we went to the Church side of the exhibit.  I did not know much about Frederick Church before the exhibit.  It was interesting to learn about the trip he took with his family.  He took his wife and child on the trip across the middle east.  He did a number of sketches, paintings on site, but also did quick ones to ensure he remembered enough for when he got back to the US.  He made his name painting the Middle East.  While he was there, he often sketched real landscapes, but when he returned home he often made idyllic and symbolic landscapes merging multiple locations.









Well worth the visit although the split exhibit lost some of the impact of a single, longer exhibit.  

 Times visited: 8
Time in museum: 2 hrs
Overall: A-
Location: 5200 Woodward Ave, Detroit, MI 48202, USA

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