We visited the Detroit Institute of Arts (The “DIA”) on December 31, 2022 for one main purpose, and one secondary purpose. The main purpose was to see our last Caravaggio painting of 2022, the secondary was to see the massive “Van Gogh in America” exhibit that was about to end there.

The DIA is a small, but very nice museum on the north end of Detroit’s downtown area and right next to the Wayne State campus. The second level of the museum is positively labyrinthine and it is kind of hard to find your way around. Many of the usual exits and entrances to different galleries are blocked off due to crowd control for the Van Gogh exhibit, so the map was not super helpful. Plus, there are a lot of large courtyards in the museum so there is no general flow to the place. This is ok though, because often you end up wandering into an unexpected space full of some cool stuff.

On the second floor is Diego Rivera’s impressive “Detroit Industry Murals”. These massive murals surround the entire Rivera Court and represent various industries such as air, shipping, and automobiles. Don’t miss this very cool space when you visit! I didn’t take any still shots, but check out my Instagram page for some video footage!

On the ground floor is the Kresge Court where we had a lovely lunch. The court looks like it was part of church courtyard and is surrounded by brick. There is a glass roof keeping you safe from the elements, but letting in a lot of light. We had a really nice lunch here, and they serve sandwiches, coffee, and some beer and wines as well.

So our main purpose for being here was to view their Caravaggio, “Martha and Mary Magdalene” which was painted in 1598. Check out everything about our search around the world for Caravaggio paintings here! The lighting on the piece was very good and without glare, and I go more in detail about the painting itself on the Caravaggio page. We were definitely irritated, though, that the DIA doesn’t seem to care that much about having this piece! There were zero postcards or other paraphernalia in the gift shop about it! We spent about 20 minutes admiring this gorgeous work, and then it was time to head to the Van Gogh exhibit.

I really love the works of Van Gogh, and I was quite excited to see 74 of his paintings in one place, expecting to see some of the bigger, more popular works from around the world. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. One of the most famous paintings at the exhibit was his “Bedroom” painting, which we can see on the regular here in Chicago. I did love seeing the olive tree paintings that showed the groves outside of the psychiatric hospital where he stayed.

“Starry Night Over the Rhone” was truly special. This isn’t the normal starry night that you’re used to seeing – he did a bunch of starry night-type paintings. This one is typically housed at the Musee D’Orsay in Paris and is really lovely – probably my favorite painting of the entire exhibit. Overall, though, I found the exhibit lacking in any kind of true flow, and it also lacked more of Van Gogh’s more signature pieces, which is too bad considering the scale of this exhibit. I also really hate it when museums oversell tickets to these types of exhibits, jamming as many people in there as possible. It makes for a pretty unpleasant experience.

Overall, though, we had a nice visit for a few hours at the DIA, capped off with a nice lunch in the lovely Kresge Court. Since this is the closest Caravaggio to us in Chicago, I’m sure we’ll be back!