Rivera had long been fascinated by machines and believed that engineers were America's greatest artists. As a child he loved to draw locomotives and imaginary mechanical inventions. His love of machines supported his idealist Marxist view in which the hope for society rested on the use of technology to free the working classes from menial labor and provide for the material needs of all. In the Detroit Industry cycle, the factory workers are not freed from menial and strenuous tasks. Yet, while dominated by the machines, the workers are shown in harmony with them; their dance-like poses are part of a mechanized ritual.

The Detroit Industry murals are Rivera's finest work in his mature style. They remain brilliant in color and perfect in condition. Rivera's fascinating and complex composition is as powerful today as it was in 1933 when the cycle was first unveiled.

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