C A M O U P E D I A: have lent a beauty and color to ocean-going vessels

John Everett

In years past, we have posted images of and articles about the World War I-era paintings of dazzle-camouflaged ships by British artist (Herbert Barnard) John Everett. Those earlier blog posts can be accessed online here. A number of his artworks were exhibited in New York in 1918, as is described in a lengthy article and interview in the Atlanta Constitution, the full text of which is quoted below. It was apparently written by Anne Morton Lane (London correspondent for the New York Mail and Express) and appeared in other newspapers as well. The paintings by Everett in this post are in the collection of the Royal Museums in Greenwich UK, and are not the same as those reproduced in earlier posts.

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"DAZZLE ARTIST" TO EXHIBIT HERE Outcome of Naval Camouflage, Work of English Painter, Is Unique in Its Interest and Beauty, in Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta GA), December 22, 1918—

London, December 9—Toward the middle of December there will be an exhibition in New York of pictures which have received the sanction of the British government to be shown outside Great Britain. They are the work of John Everett, a highly interesting and distinguished English artist, who has made a specialty of seascapes, and pictures of ships on the high seas, and at rest in docks.

Early in the war when the use of camouflage as applied to shipping became a special and practical portion of defense at sea, as the camouflage of guns, airplanes, munition sheds and other machinery of battles became a component part of war on land, Mr. Everett saw the wonderful possibilities that might accrue from a record of the commerce afloat as a pictorial history in color. As we all know, now that hostilities have ceased, the mystery that surrounded all ports and shipping in the allied countries was as necessary as it was dense. Therefore it was only after many weary months that Mr. Everett through personal persuasion, practical influence and genuine hard work was accorded the privilege by his majesty's government of visiting the great docks of London and Liverpool in order that he might make pictures of the amazing transformations wrought by paint and scientific knowledge upon the units of the fleet.

John Everett

Submarines at Rest
And now that the U-boats have ceased from troubling and the submarines are at rest within British waters. by permission of his majesty's government Mr. Everett will shortly be able to display the fruit of his two or three years' work in dockyards, at exhibitions to be held in London and New York.

I went to see Mr. Everett the other day in his interesting and remarkable studio, which is situated off the beaten track of general traffic in a sort of side-tracked field in St. John's Wood—a well-known artists' quarter of suburban London. This studio of Mr. Everett's is a converted barn of great size and with unusual lighting qualifications. Its walls are lined, and a large portion of its floor space filled with pictures of ships. All these ships display camouflage designs, and they represent many vessels that have plied their way between England and America in war-time, and survived the lurking dangers of enemy attacks. Others have succumbed to the perils of U-boats. These pictures form a remarkable record that must be of extreme interest not only to those people who have crossed the Atlantic in war-time, but also to many thousands who have heard of the strange masquerading of ships on the high seas.

In England the painting and designing of sea-going vessels has been carried on under the direction of a department known colloquially as the "dazzle office," and Mr. Everett was appointed as its illustrator.

Curtain Is Lifted
Now that the curtain is being lifted from some of the amazing secrets of the admiralty and war office. Mr. Everett has many interesting things to relate concerning the art of "dazzle-painting" at sea, and the possibility of its continuation after the war.

"Although the word camouflage is an excellent one that has been adopted by the Anglo-Saxon tongue since its uses in war-time have been discovered," said Mr. Everett, "I think that the descriptive 'dazzle-ships' is a more descriptive title when applied to the use of this art at sea. And after all, it is not a very new idea, because we are told that the ancient Greeks painted their ships with big eyes and cheeks upon their bows to give them a terrifying expression of wisdom that might serve to confound their enemies. But we moderns did better than this in war-time; we had our ships painted in ways such that their strange colorings and curious stripings and curves would puzzle the enemy and serve to give rise to uncertainty by dazzling the eyes of the watchful foe. In fact, as I very early discovered in my work as official artist to the dazzle department, the object of ship painting in war-time has really very little to do with the real meaning of the French word camouflage, which means the dissimulation of natural objects with the landscape by protective coloring. Dazzle-painting was invented by the well-known sea painter, Lieutenant Commander Norman WIlkinson, RNVR, and it is the only system which has practically solved the problem of the variation of light, and which attains its object not by eluding the submarine by invisibility, but by confusing its observers.

Limitations of Paint
By recognizing the limitations of paint, the art of dazzle as applied to ocean-going ships pushes these limitations as far as possible, and makes the object of its being not invisibility, but distortion; it makes the problem of calculating the course of vessel extremely difficult.

"Each design, as you will notice in the many pictures I have painted of ships, is entirely different from the other entirely different from the other. No two dazzle-ships are alike in detail, either in color or design; the success of Commander Wilkinson's inventions were so marked during all the weary war-time months that they were adopted by every entente nation with a marine service. I think that this is one of the reasons why my pictures when they are seen in New York will be of extreme interest Americans. They will then be able to see exactly the source from which came all those wonder ships that braved the perils of the sea during the past four years. I have shown my portraits of these masquerading voyagers in English waters, and British docks—settings that perhaps will be better appreciated nowadays in the new world, because it is so closely linked in these days with the old."

Among the pictures which will be seen in New York next month by permission of the British government are "HMS Victorian Bringing a Convoy of American Troops Into London." Mr. Everett told me that this ship was afterwards torpedoed. She was hit amidships, but by some miracle she was brought into port and no lives were lost. Another picture is of the steamship Shuma discharging timber.

Dazzled Flour Ship
"This," explained Mr. Everett, "in a ship with an interesting dazzle showing a great deal of light sky blue picked out with black and white." Another picture shows a dazzled flour ship, and another the conversion of the Cunard steamship Nanerig into an armored cruiser. These and many other pictures of a like kind display with extraordinary clearness something of the practical side of what those who have "gone down to the sea in ships" have had to do in order to confound the enemy.

There is something very dramatic about these pictures of Mr. Everett's. They give the story of the life of the sea, and the traffic across that great grim stretch of water between England and America with wonderful vividness. The artist confesses that these pictures, painted under circumstances both difficult and dangerous, are the most fascinating work he has ever undertaken.

"The painting of these pictures, which I regard as a sort of diary of the merchant service at sea during war-time," he said, "has given me an immense belief in and admiration for this dazzle theory; the whole point of it has been the deception of the submarine as to the course of a ship, thus causing miscalculation of her distance. You ask me if the dazzled-ships will die with war-time; I suppose for practical purposes they will do so. But it seems to me a pity, for undoubtedly they have lent a beauty and color to ocean-going vessels and have transformed dirty old tramp steamers into objects of remarkable harmony of shape and hue."

Certainly amongst the strange records which the war leaves behind it these paintings of "dazzle-ships" by John Everett will not be among the least curious. It has been suggested that the dazzled colors might still be used in peace time, not to distort, but to emphasize shipping. As Mr. Everett himself suggests, it certainly might be diverted from its past uses to the purpose of making a ship's course more clear and thus bringing about an avoidance of collisions.

John Everett

Thursday, July 3, 2025

have lent a beauty and color to ocean-going vessels