Ballin described his murals in a pamphlet published in 1913:
"Art is a semi-nude woman, holding a palette in her left hand; her right hand rests on the model of St. Gauden's Puritan. Her other attributes are a partitive organ, two masks and a scroll. She wears the machicolated crown. Handicraft is represented by intricate tapestry which serves as background."

On the ceiling surrounding the "Spirit of Wisconsin," Ballin depicted six "attributes" of the state: Invention, Charity, Pioneering, Justice, Religion, and the Arts, shown above. Like the "Spirit of Wisconsin," each was painted as a beautiful woman in a pose that communicated the "spirit" she symbolized. "Charity" was seated with a child in her lap and a dog at her feet looking at something off in the distance, showing her protective, caring nature. "Invention" looked up and off in to the distance as if "attracted by an airplane,” as the smoke of two factories rose behind her. In "the Arts," Ballin surrounded his female figure with a series of props that reflected his classical definition of what constituted art - masks from a Greek drama and a model of statute by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, a preeminent sculptor of the Beaux-Arts school.

Image courtesy of the Wisconsin State Historical Society.

Ballin's quotation appears in his pamphlet, "Mural Paintings in the Executive Chamber, State Capitol Building Madison, Wisconsin," (New York: 1913).

Details on the ceiling and quotation appear in The International Studio vol. 51, no. 204 (Feb., 1914)