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Isabel Anderson, Zigzagging. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1918—
I was not disappointed on seeing the British camouflaged boats! They exceeded even my wildest dreams. The British idea is not to make the ship invisible, but to deceive as to its direction and length—the bow, for instance, often being painted to represent the stern. They were even sometimes made to look like two boats—unbelievably queer! One had a destroyer under full steam painted on her side. The prominent colors seemed to be green, blue, white, and black; sometimes done in figures, or resembling a Scottish plaid, or squares and triangles, or strange cubist designs. There were curling, crazy lines—often carried on to the lifeboats, which were painted half and half. These designs are quite incomprehensible to the lay mind. One wonders if some cubist artist has gone entirely mad—and perhaps the whole world, too.
Answers (top to bottom) John James Audubon, William Harnett, László Moholy-Nagy, and Édouard Manet.
