Gerald Handerson Thayer / an enigmatic life unsolved

Gerald Handerson Thayer

The American painter and ornithologist Gerald Handerson Thayer (see portrait photograph above) remains a mystery. 

Over the years, I've written quite a lot about his collaborative work with his father, Abbott Handerson Thayer, who is sometimes also known as "the father of camouflage." The father blinds us to the son. Below are portions from a news article, reporting on a public talk that Gerald presented in Rochester NY two years before his father died. He is a great unknown. At some point he needs to be written about.

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CAMOUFLAGE AND PROTECTIVE COLORATION: Man Who Shares with Father Credit for Discovery, Gives Interesting Lecture at Memorial Gallery in The Post Express (Rochester NY), March 17, 1919—

A lecture on “Camouflage and Protective Coloration” was delivered yesterday afternoon by Gerald H[anderson] Thayer at the Memorial Art Gallery. Dr. [Benjamin] Rush Rhees introduced the speaker as “the illustrious son of an illustrious father, to both of whom belongs the credit for the discovery of the principles of camouflage and protective coloration.”

Excerpts from Thayer’s [slide illustrated] presentation are as follows—

Just how much of the camouflage used in the war is the result of the work of my father, Abbott [Handerson] Thayer, and myself is not certain. We did not have any influence on the dazzle system eventually used at sea, which was planned to deceive the man at the periscope, so much as on the early marine system or the method employed on land.

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Our book published before the war [Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom, 1909] was used in England, France and Germany. At first everything was fantastically camouflaged, and not very effectively, but later the only method used was to prop up on poles nets of cord or wire to which were fastened bits of colored burlap. This was made in great quantities in factories behind the lines, and at the front was used to cover guns, earthworks, anything that was to be concealed from airplane cameras. Sticks and dirt from the vincinity would then be thrown on top, and whenever possible the result was tested by asking a friendly plane to take a picture of it.

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Darwin’s father was the first to notice that protective coloration was a wild animal trait. My father and I found that there were certain well defined principles. The figure of a pure white duck stands out conspiciously against a pure white backgound. The shadows about the figure give it away. The same figure, with a gray back but with a light underneath is invisible against a gray background. The under parts must be lighter in color to offset the shadow. That is the first principle, called “countershading.” It is very common in North America.

The second is “concealment.” Strangely enough the gourgeous plumage of tropical birds is the best example of this. They are hard to find in their brilliant surroundings.

The third principle is that of “disguise,” when an animal pretends to be what it is not or not to be what it is. The pattern of the coat is like the surroundings. A zebra, for instance, is practically invisible standing against the sky in reeds or a clump of bushes. The woodcock is another only it is like the ground on which it builds its nest. Disguise is found all the way from butterflies to skunks.

Many animals combine two of these principles in their coloration.

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

Poet William Carlos Williams meets Gerald H. Thayer

Above Gerald H. Thayer, Male ruffed grouse in the forest (1907-08). Watercolor on paper. 19.75 inches high x 20 inches wide. First published as an illustration in his book, Concealing coloration in the animal kingdom, New York: Macmillan, 1909. Plate II, 38 (public domain). The original painting is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Roy R. Behrens, “Khaki to khaki (dust to dust): the ubiquity of camouflage in human experience” in Ann Elias, Ross Hartley and Nicholas Tsoutas, eds., Camouflage Cultures: Beyond the art of disappearance. AU: Sydney University Press, 2015—

The grouse [in Thayer’s painting] is completely motionless (a common means of defence among animals) for the same reason that the Ames distorted room [one of the Ames Demonstrations in psychology] works best from a rigid, “frozen” one-eyed view. Motion is a great spoiler of camouflage, and if the grouse moves even a muscle, it will be quickly given away.…

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Halter Peter, The revolution in the visual arts and the poetry of William Carlos Williams. Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 125-126—

[From an analysis of a William Carlos Williams poem]…the last lines [of the poem]—“a / partridge / from dry leaves”—contain a reference to the painting Male Ruffed Grouse in the Forest by Gerald H. Thayer…Thayer’s watercolor of a partridge merging with dry leaves and winter trees behind it is related to the Audubon tradition of accurate and loving observation of the American fauna which Wlliams so highly valued…

Moreover, Thayer’s painting is a kind of picture puzzle: Based on the systematic exploration of mimicry in animals, it depicts a partridge that is indeed difficult tell “from dry leaves.’…Williams may well have singled out Thayer’s painting as a work of art that, not unlike his own poem, explores ambiguty and foregrounds the problem of figure and ground. Both painting and poem are about what has to be “figured out”; both contain, in other words, the hide-and-seek dimension that asks for the viewer’s or reader’s active participation.

VIDEO LINKS

Nature, Art, and Camouflage  

Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage

 Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage

 Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage

Gerald Thayer Talks on Camouflage at Ithaca 1919

G.H. Thayer, Cottontail Rabbit (1909). Public domain.

Above Gerald H. Thayer, painting of a cottontail rabbit, first published as an illustration in his Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom (NY: Macmillan, 1909). There are 16 full-color illustrations in the book, nearly all of which were collaborative paintings. In this example, Gerald painted the rabbit figure, while the background (as credited) was completed by Abbott H. Thayer and Emma B. Thayer.

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CAMOUFLAGE ONLY NATURE IMITATION: Is Shown By Gerald Thayer in Lecture at Reorganization Meeting of Cayuga Bird Club in Ithaca Journal (Ithaca NY), Tuesday, March 18, 1919—

An unusual and enlightening lecture was given last night in Roberts Hall when Gerald H. Thayer, son of the famous artist, Abbott H. Thayer, spoke on “Camouflage in War and in Nature,” illustrating the talk with lantern slides showing birds and animals in their natural surroundings, in some cases so perfectly concealed that they could not be seen until pointed out, and concluding with illustrations of the use of camouflage in war. Not only did Mr. Thayer show what looked like trees, bushes and grasses and then prove that they were birds and animals, but he reversed the process, showing what looked like birds and animals, and proved to be only sections of trees, bushes, etc.

Mr. Thayer’s lecture was the first to be given this year under the auspices of the Cayuga Bird Club, and in introducing him, Louis A. Fuertes spoke of the success of the club in past years, of the wonderful opportunities for the study of birds offered in Ithaca and of the bird sanctuary with its recorded list of more than 200 different species of birds-and a wealth of flowers in the spring. He explained that the club is now entering upon a period of reorganization after the war, and asked all who were interested to renew their memberships.

“Abbott Thayer and his son GeraId have worked together on the wonderful problems of protective coloration,” said Mr. Fuertes “and the resuIt is the art of camouflage, which did not prove successful when presented to the military authorities of this country and of England, but which was eagerly taken up by the French and developed by them, stolen by the Germans, and given to their allies.”

“There are three principal kinds of camouflage in nature and in war,” said Mr. Thayer. “The first consists of hiding things, making them more or less disappear, and plays an important part in nature. The second type is [the] making of fake things, things which are made to look like something else.”

In ilIustration of this second type in war he spoke of the use of supposed stumps of trees, made out of iron and covered with bark, in which telephones and observers could be concealed, and which looked so exactly like the real thing that they were seldom noticed by the enemy. Another instance which he told as a true story of the war was that of the aviator who came back to headquarters and urged the captain in charge to train some guns on a cemetery just back of the enemy lines. When the captain objected to firing on a cemetery, he explained that when he flew over early that morning the “cemetery” was on the opposite side of certain field.

As a good iIlustration of this type of camouflage in nature he spoke of the walking stick, measuring worms and caterpillars which are made to look exactly like a twig.

“The third kind of camouflage can best be used with things that move around,” said Mr. Thayer “and has been developed during the past year, particularly on ships at sea, painting them in striking contrasts, making them harder to hit and sometimes making them look as if they were going in a different direction, an iIlusion which proved particularly deceptive when seen through the periscope of a submarine. He explained that the object in painting these vessels in stripes and blotches was not to conceal them, as so many supposed, but to make them look strange, so that they were hard to locate. In the early years of the war, he added, they did try to make vessels resemble clouds, sea horizon, etc., but were unsuccessful for nothing but the whitest white will disappear against the sky.

He spoke of the sinking of the Titanic when she struck an iceberg on a clear, starry night, and explained the catastrophe by the fact that the white iceberg must have been practicalIy invisible against the sky.