camouflage / gestalt / design / taoism / bauhaus

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Ding Cong / camouflaged wit and humor from china

Above is his illustration of the following traditional story, as told by Chinese artist Ding Cong (who signed his work as Xiao Ding) (1916-2009).

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Ding Cong, Wit and Humor from Ancient China: One Hundred Cartoons. China Books and Periodicals, 1986—

92. Camouflage with Leaves—

A poor man from the state of Chu once read the following in a book: “A mantis camouflaged itself while waiting to pounce on a cicada.” The man then gathered some leaves under a tree and used them to camouflage himself. When he asked his wife if she could identify him she spoke truthfully and said, “Yes, I can.” The man then changed his posture and asked her several more times. Becoming annoyed by this practice, she finally told him that she was unable to identify him. The man was very glad.

Thus camouflaged with leaves the man went to the market and stole things from the open stalls. But he was caught and summoned to the magistrate’s court. After the man confessed, the magistrate burst into laughter and set him free. He found the man’s conduct so inane that he decided not to punish him.

Concealing bad tattoos | A cluster of forget-me-nots

Cover illustration for Puck (1917). Library of Congress.

Above Satirical portrait of a tattooed Theodore Roosevelt, from the cover of Puck magazine, April 10, 1917. Caption: THE NEW TATTOOED MAN. He Makes An Exhibition of Himself.

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Charles W. Purcell, Jr., Getting Under Your Skin in The Baltimore Sun, December 8, 1946, p. 15—

“Before and during the war [WW2] all my work was putting [tattoos] on, now it’s taking off,” says Charles J. Gelzer. To the servicemen who climb the narrow stairs to the second floor, one-room parlor of his East Baltimore Street establishment he is known as Tattoo Charlie.

Seventy-five percent of m work is covering up names, initials, and work that returning servicemen don’t want their wives or girlfriends to see,” he says. “I also do a lot of retouching and going over work that is undesirable, poor jobs done by beginners.”

Ironically, when Charlie camouflages an old girl friend’s names, he uses a cluster of forget-me-nots.

“During the war,” he says, “a lot of guys were turned down by recruiting stations until they had obscene or immoral tattoos covered.

“All I had to so with the usual nude designs was to put on a grass skirt and a lei, then the fellow was ready for service.”…

“I never had a complaint about my work until a few weeks ago,” he says, “A woman who had been in before, came in and demanded that I remove or do over her husband’s name inscribed on her arm. They had just been divorced.”

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WOMEN IN ARMED SERVICES PAY VISIT TO TATTOO ARTIST in St. Louis Times-Tribune, April 5, 1943—

[St Louis Tattoo artist Bert Grimm’s] most original customer, a girl, changed the bromidic “Death Before Dishonor” to “Death Before Dishwashing.” His most chagrined patron was a man who brought in a Chinese line [of characters] which he said meant “good luck, farewell.” A few days after the words had been written on him a Chinese laundryman interpreted the inscription as “four pairs of socks, two suits of underwear, five handkerchiefs.”

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Embedded Figures

Article on Gestalt Theory Chosen for Chinese Journal

Leonardo: Journal of the International Society of Arts, Science and Technology (published by MIT Press) is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

To commemorate that, Zhuangshi: The Chinese Journal of Design (published through Tsinghua University in Beijing) has published a special issue in which it has translated into Chinese and reprinted in its pages six selected articles (chosen by the Chinese editors) from all past issues of Leonardo.

We were pleased to learn that one of our articles, titled "Art, Design and Gestalt Theory" (Leonardo 31, No 4, 1998) was among the six articles chosen.

Link to articles on Gestalt theory