Arthur Millier wrote in his review of the murals, “The Ballin Murals in Los Angeles,” California Southland (1927):

"An aged man, Mosiac law, counts on his ten fingers the commandments. He preaches the moral law to pagan Mercury who does not seem impressed. By them stands a lovely mysterious figure, the mother of the gods of the Far East. In her skirts hides a child - Fear - origin of religious explanation of phenomena. She is afraid of the unknown, shown here in the guise of a turtle.

Here the panel is broken in the middle by a rocky gorge. On a ledge above the torrent sits a starving saint encouraged by the glowing figure of Inspiration bearing to him the crystal globe of Life. All the prophets and saints are symbolized in this figure. In a tiny circle, Adam and Eve are being driven from the garden. One interprets the small circle of our forefathers as the circumscription of the life of man."

Although not included in this image, Millier's description of the Wall of Religions continues: "A dark medieval serpent, with the body of a woman and the head of a Gorgon, offers the red apple of passion to divine Inspiration… The wall is terminated by a group wherein a Renaissance Madonna, of the utmost beauty and workmanship, partially hides the bronzed, agonized figure of a Byzantine Christ on the cross. About these figures angels and loves revolve. At the bottom is Mohammed, founder of the last powerful religion; and a savage who believes his spear has divine power because it will kill. Below him is a severed head, Intolerance, above him a modern church edifice, these two summing up the extremes of religious influence in the human breast."

In this section of the Wall of Religions, Ballin painted his figures on multiple planes and surfaces to give the panel depth, making it look much like a film set, complete with small stages made of rocks at various heights and depths to break up the action in the shot. He used costumes to indicate the identities of his allegorical figures, including Mercury's recognizable winged hat, and staged two scenes to illustrate his story. These scenes were then stitched together with others to create a montage sequence, "rhythmically bound together in colors which are warm and glowing," as a reviewer described in Arts and Decoration.¹

Image appears in the Hugo Ballin Papers (collection #407), Charles Young Library, Department of Special Collections, University of California Los Angeles, Box 15, Folder 4.

Mural caption from Arthur Millier's review of the murals, “The Ballin Murals in Los Angeles,” California Southland (1927)

1. Quotation from Arts and Decoration vol. 22 August (1928) p. 39.