Puck — March 1877 — page 16: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This satirical illustration critiques composer Richard Wagner's musical style by depicting his orchestra as a chaotic mechanical contraption. The central image shows various instruments—labeled including "Wire-Tololde," "Tin-panium," and "Calophone"—assembled into an absurd, overcomplicated machine operated by musicians. The satire mocks Wagner's complex orchestration and harmonic innovations, which contemporary critics found bewildering and excessive. The smaller scenes around the margins show audiences reacting with confusion, distress, or indifference to his music—some covering their ears, others sleeping or arguing. The title "Method Exposed" suggests the cartoon is "revealing" Wagner's compositional approach as overly mechanical rather than genuinely artistic, a common complaint from Victorian-era critics who viewed his modernist techniques with suspicion.