•••
CAMOUFLAGE AND HOW TO PRACTICE IT IN PRIVATE LIFE with sketches by Harry Raleigh, in Vanity Fair, 1917—
Camouflage is now the military and artistic rage. All the French and German painters and illustrators are going in for it, not only in the war zone but at home. The art of camouflage is also practiced in America. It consists in so painting objects that they will exactly duplicate the background against which they are to appear. The net result is that the objects so painted become invisible. Guns, bridges, forts, soldiers, helmets, have only to be cleverly colored, striped, streaked, or spotted, in order to vanish completely from view. Try it in your family; streak any member of it—your wife, let us say—like a zebra and see how quickly she will disappear from view when placed before a thicket, a pile of underbrush, an art nouveau screen, an Elsie de Wolfe sofa, or a Navajo blanket.
RELATED LINKS
Dazzle Camouflage: What is it and how did it work? / Nature, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage / Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage / Optical science meets visual art / Disruption versus dazzle / Chicanery and conspicuousness / Under the big top at Sims' circus
