As Arthur Millier described in his review of the murals, “The Ballin Murals in Los Angeles,” California Southland (1927), the central scene was designed to represent architecture by depicting a "renaissance architect conferring with a cardinal about new buildings." Rising behind the men in the background is a byzantine Cathedral. The women in the corner of the image depict music, one playing a violin, the other a small piano.

While all of the figures in Ballin's murals at the Getz house were allegorical representations of themes, the Wall of the Arts featured characters based on history, offering a more realistic portrait of the Arts as they have been practiced and enjoyed throughout time. Figures engaged in painting, architecture, and music enlivened that history.

The presence of the arts in the "Wall of the Arts" is created almost entirely through props and costumes. The male figures in the center of the panel are made identifiable and differentiated in rank by of their embellished outfits and adornment, including their particular headwear - the cardinal's mitre, the architect with his chaperone hat, and the painter with his more modest sock hat. The figures are also shown in action demonstrating the arts the represent: the women play instruments, the painter works on a portrait, and the architect shows his plans. Ballin's use of props, costumes, and figures in action helped to create a narrative effect on the Wall of the Arts, allowing the history of the arts over time to unfold as the viewer's eye moved from left to right across the mural. And, as in his set designs, Ballin painted his figures on multiple planes and at a variety of depths, embellishing the settings in which he placed the figures as much as the figures themselves. As a result of Ballin's use of these filmmaking techniques, the mural had a montage-like impact that drew the viewers eye across it. Arthur Millier, the art critic of the Los Angeles Times, believed that story-telling quality of the mural was admirable as it promised to have a "thought-and-wit stimulating" effect on dinner party guests.

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.

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