[9] In Souter's painting, a negro jazz musician is in full white tie evening dress with a top hat; he sits on a cast down and shattered[4] classical statue of Minerva,[10][3] the goddess of virginity and traditional values.

"[6] Souter's stated intention was to "illustrate the tendency nowadays for Jazz's influence to permeate our daily lives",[1] and to "suggest the fascination exercised by the primitive and savage upon the over-civilised".

[10] Initially, Frank Dicksee, the President of the Royal Academy, praised Souter's piece as "a work of great promise by executed with a considerable degree of excellence".

[12] Despite its removal, word of Souter's painting had already spread, and crowds of excited visitors thronged to the exhibition only to search the walls in vain for the sequestered work.

In an early edition of the Melody Maker, a British weekly music magazine, London-born critic Edgar Jackson demanded the painting be encindered: "Breakdown" is not only a picture entirely nude of the respect due to the chastity and morality of the younger generation but in the degradation it implies to modern white woman there is the perversive danger to the community and the best thing that could happen to it is to have it ...

"[10][2] After conceding that "as a protest against the jazz age, the picture seems undoubtedly effective," the Times journalist nevertheless opined that the work would excite needless controversy and should not have been exhibited.

[10][2] Similarly, Boston Evening Transcript criticised the work under the headline "A Racial Outrage" and claimed the painting was designed "to horrify decent people".