"The Music of the future" — Richard Wagner

Ward's caricature catches Wagner perched on a bentwood chair, body twisted violently leftward, baton raised and free hand clawing the air — all kinetic energy, no orchestra required. The caption quotes Wagner's own theoretical slogan back at him with sly irony: the man who declared opera obsolete is shown conducting from a seat, as though even his grandiosity cannot quite sustain full standing. Ward exaggerates the composer's famously large nose and jutting chin, standard Spy technique for prominent noses, though applied here with an edge sharpened by British press hostility to Wagner's abrasive self-promotion during his 1877 London visit. The pince-nez and flyaway grey hair complete a figure of combustible vanity — genius and pomposity rendered inseparable.