The Rivera murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts. The Garden Court at the Detroit Institute of Arts. It doesn't look like a one-time battleground. Nowadays, people who want to sit together and chat, and visitors merely resting their feet find the Garden Court at the Detroit Institute of Arts a pleasant place.
Students linger there with their books.
Some of the loungers study the murals on the walls by Diego Rivera, but most hardly give the frescoes a second glance. It wasn't always so peaceful. When the murals were new, they were the center of a raging controversy. The kindest disposition of them proposed by those who thought they were an outrage was that they be whitewashed over. This was the suggestion of the Rev. Ralph Higgins, senior curate of St. Paul's Cathedral.