Hidden Humor / World War One camouflage cartoons

I have just premiered a new 14-minute documentary video talk, titled HIDDEN HUMOR: World War One Cartoonists' Views of Camouflage. It is free to view (and to share with others) on YouTube at <https://youtu.be/V6silNdlL3l>. It is not only about wartime camouflage but revisits the surprising (and often amusing) connections between art, fashion design, women's rights, bootlegging, and ship camouflage—as became a favorite focus of newspaper cartoons and comics before and after WWI.

•••

G. Stanley Hall (1920)—

Humor is perhaps the best camouflage for fear. In looking over the files of the trench journals of the Allies nothing has struck me more forcibly than the desperate and pathetic attempts to jest, even about death itself in its more horrid aspects.

Grant Wood's camouflage service during World War I

WWI French artillery camouflage

It is by now common knowledge that when Iowa artist Grant Wood served in the US Army during World War I, he was assigned to field camouflage. When someone contacted me recently to ask what I might know about that, I replied that the best source might be Darrell Garwood's biography titled Artist in Iowa: A Life of Grant Wood (New York: Norton, 1944). Wood's involvement in camouflage is mentioned in other biographies as well, but they tend to be brief and less than strictly factual.

Here's what Garwood's biography says—

Since his [Wood's] mother and sister were dependent on him, he had been placed in Class 3C in the draft and was passed over in the first draft call in September. Later, other family arrangements were made for the very little money Mrs. Wood needed to keep house, and Grant enlisted as a private in the army. He was sent to Camp Dodge, outside Des Moines, where he spent a good part of his training period making pencil portraits of his comrades and officers. He charged privates twenty-five cents and officers one dollar for the portraits—at least these were his prices when anyone offered to pay him. He didn't ask for payment, and the officer didn't think to offer it, when he made a portrait of his company commander, Captain George E. Proud.

Captain Proud was getting ready to go into town when a sergeant came in to say there was a man outside who wanted to make a sketch of him. The captain was in a hurry, but told the sergeant to bring him in. It didn't take Grant more than ten or fifteen minutes to make the sketch. Proud scarcely looked at it at the time, and afterward didn't remember Grant's name; he only remembered that Grant had said he was a mural painter. When he was back practicing law at Arapahoe, Nebraska, however, Proud found the sketch among his things, liked it and had it framed. It hung on his office wall for fifteen years before someone happened to notice it was a Grant Wood portrait.

Grant's stay at Camp Dodge promised to be pleasant. He was excused from the more onerous military duties, given a sidecar motorcycle, and told to go about making historic records. Then he contracted anthrax, and nearly died. When he recovered, he was sent to Washington to do camouflage work. He served as a private in Company B, Regiment 97, United States Engineers, and was in charge of the paint tent. He made clay models of field gun positions and helped camouflage artillery pieces. Before-and-after photographs of a cannon he helped camouflage were on display for several years at the Smithsonian Institution.

He was still in Washington when the war ended, and was transferred back to Camp Dodge. He arrived home on Christmas Eve, 1918.…

Like Norman Rockwell and other artists who served in the military, Wood was often asked (or offered) to make portraits of his fellow soldiers, including officers. The Nebraska attorney who was Wood's company commander was George C. Proud, not George E. Proud. Other artists in the infantry (Walt Disney being one) were able to earn extra money by painting camouflage or other designs on the helmets of other soldiers.

It’s interesting that in Wood’s WWI draft registration, he lists himself as a "contractor and builder” not as an artist. After regaining his health at Camp Dodge, he was presumably transferred to Camp American University in Washington DC, where, as Garwood notes, he camouflaged artillery (field guns or cannon).

A different Wood biography claims that he painted the artillery for the purposes of making it "blend in" with its surroundings. But that may be misleading, since by 1918 it was common practice to camouflage nearly anything not by blending but by applying “disruptive” (high difference) patterns. The goal was less to blend in than to break apart the shape, making it harder to see as a “thing.”  

Some of these guns were genuine functioning cannon, while others may have been non-firing dummies, made of logs and wagon wheels (known as Quaker guns), that looked like cannon from the air, and were used to divert enemy fire. These might also be camouflaged, to make them more convincing. By that time in the war, when field guns were manufactured in the US, the disruptive camouflage patterns (all the same) were automatically applied at the factory during production, so it is somewhat surprising that the patterns would have to be painted.

WWI camouflage applied during production process

The war ended before Wood was sent overseas. He was never stationed in Europe. Two artists who served with him as camoufleurs were Orrin White and Charles P. Killgore, with whom (long after the war) he later exhibited artwork at Younkers in Des Moines. See details here.

It seems to me that all of this misses the point somewhat of Wood's connection to camouflage. The most important convergence is that camouflage relies on the same "grouping principles" that artists and designers use. I've explained all this in an online video talk.

•••

Anon, in ART CIRCLES, in Long Beach Independent (Long Beach CA), March 27, 1949, p. 10—

[A retired oil-field worker turned artist Carl R. Walline’s] interest in painting dates back to the first world war, when he drummed up a lively business on a returning troop ship painting camouflage on the helmets of soldiers at a dollar a helmet.

With this leftover camouflage paint he did his first landscape.

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 /  

a disconcerting confusion of colors and shapes in WWI

Tank on display in Detroit (1918). Restored / colorized.

Austin C. Lescarboura, SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION OF THE CAMOUFLAGE ART: Expert Writes of the Real Reasons for the Weird Things Being Done on Land and Sea in These Days with the Intent to Deceive—Why a Steamship Is Queerly Striped and Why She Is Difficult to Locate When Thus Painted, in The Tampa Sunday Tribune Magazine Section (Tampa FL), September 15, 1918, p. 1—

The practice of deception, concealment, make-up or whatever you please to call it, gained rapidly with both sides in the present conflict. It was at about the same time of the battle of the Somme, during the summer of 1916, that this art assumed gigantic proportions and the term "camouflage," borrowed from the French, became a universal expression. The British and French armies, and most likely the German, Austrian and other enemy armies, set aside a certain number of men for the practice of camouflage. Artists, scene painters, carpenters and mechanics were impressed into the camouflage service and in short order became expert "camoufleurs." Since then wonders have been accomplished in this direction; but, as in the case of so many other phases of this war, must remain a deep secret until the struggle comes to be written in its entirety—and without the censor.

Nothing has been of greater assistance to the all-powerful artillery than the airplane. Queer combination this. to be sure; the steel monster, belching fire and hurling thousands of pounds of steel and high explosive, works hand in hand with the frail wood and Iinen airplane which goes about its work in the most graceful of manners. Yet, carrying the observer over enemy territory, the airplane enables the aiming of long-range artillery with a remarkable degree of accuracy. By means of wireless telegraphy, the aerial observer can signal back to his artillery chief the exact position of the target; and as the shells come over and strike he can signal back whether they are falling too long or too short, and how far to either side, until after a number of rounds the shells register on the target.

It is the eagle-eyed air scout against whom lofty perch everything is open to him, just as to a visitor at an exposition every detail of a model landscape is sharply delineated. The landscape below appears in the form of a relief map, with variegated patches indicating different kinds of terrain such as marshes, fields, woods, lakes and hills. Trenches plainly show as dark or light, while roads appear as ribbons of gray or yellow.

But camouflage foils the airman. Batteries are covered with branches and with reed screens until they take on the appearance of the surrounding fields or woods. Ammunition dumps are covered with canvas painted to simulate brown soil or the green of the field. Tents when used are painted with a patchwork design which breaks up the outlines so that they blend with the surrounding landscape. Trenches are provided with light screens so as to eliminate sharp shadows, and in some cases are covered over with reeds and foliage. Roads are spanned by reed or canvas screens which prevent the airman from observing traffic. All these things and a thousand more are done to fool the airman, until he has at last accepted the creed of the multitude. "You never can tell!"

In order to make trenches less conspicuous particular attention is paid to shadows. What makes aerial observation so effective is the oblique lighting of sunrise or sunset, for then the sun's rays cast long and sharp shadows which accentuate all objects which, with overhead lighting, would hardly show. Oblique lighting makes for high relief, and consequently more effective observation. To this end it is now common practice to make use of screens for eliminating shadows. These screens generally consist of narrow strips of cheesecloth supported on wooden stakes in front of the trenches, so that the direct rays of the sun cannot fall on the trenches and throw a sharp shadow. Instead. only a diffused, shadowless light strikes the earthwork. The cheesecloth screen, in turn, is of such color and size as to be unnoticeable.

Buildings may have to be guarded against shadows. What would be excellent camouflage at sunrise is totally ineffective at noon and at sunset, so that camouflage is a sunrise to sunset proposition. Generally, unless the camouflaged object is of paramount importance and is receiving undue attention on the part of the enemy, a happy medium is decided upon and the camouflage is an average one for the entire day. Such steps as lightening dark sides of buildings and darkening light sides, in order to average up or distribute more or less evenly the light on all sides [called countershading], is a common feature of camouflage.

The use of reeds and foliage is perhaps the most common form of battlefield make-up. Almost everything can be protected by a layer of well arranged reeds or foliage or sod, and the majority of guns are protected in this manner so that they can fire from their retreats without betraying their location. Thousands of shells are left in the open behind the lines. A bomb dropped by an airman would cause them to blow up in one terrific explosion; but a suitable covering of reeds or foliage or painted canvas prevents the airman from discovering the ammunition dump.

Spotted camouflage is quite effective in breaking up the outlines of any object. For instance, in the case of large guns mounted on railroad carriages, the usual camouflage consists of a leopard-like coat of paint. Variegated splotches of paint break up the stern lines of the gun so that at a distance it melts into the surrounding landscape, or at least appears as a mystifying, shapeless mass. The spotted form of camouflage is mostly employed where other means are unavailable, and simple as it may seem it is quite effective, according to reports.

If it were not for the aerial camera, camouflage would be a simple matter in so far as the airman is concerned. But by degrees the airman has perfected his photographic apparatus to a point where it tells him many things which would escape his notice if he depended solely on his eyes.

Aerial cameras now make perfect photographs of the ground below them even when flying at altitudes of 5,000 feet and more. The photographs, when developed and printed, are carefully studied by "photographic readers" at headquarters, and there is very little, indeed, that escapes the notice of these highly trained specialists. A little spot which would pass unnoticed through the hands of the average man is detected by the "reader" and made out as a new pill-box or small blockhouse. A slight shadow in front of a section of trench indicates a cylinder of gas for a contemplated poison-cloud attack, no doubt. A dark splotch to one side of the picture indicates that the enemy has been digging, for freshly turned soil is of a different shade from other soil; and note is made of this fact so that the "heavies," or large guns, can send a few shells in that direction.

Now camouflage is, or rather was, generally made in natural colors, so as to deceive the eye of the airman. But the camera has a totally different "eye" and responds to a different range of colors. So natural colors camouflage does not deceive the camera to any great extent. Furthermore, both sides today make use of panchromatic plates and yellow filters, which permit the camera still further to differentiate between camouflage greens and natural greens, or between false and genuine verdure, since the color screens and color plates can pick out shades with great precision. Again, certain cameras, particularly those of the enemy, are of the stereoscopic variety: that is to say. they have two lenses and operate on the same principle as the human eyes. The reason why we see everything in lifelike form as compared to the flat appearance of ordinary photographs is that we see everything through two eyes. Each eye, obviously, sees the common object from a slightly different angle, and the two in combination give the stereoscopic or relief effect. By means of such cameras the airmen are obtaining pictures in high relief. Fake trenches, only a foot or two in depth, plainly show as forgeries on the stereoscopic plates, and guns, pillboxes, listening posts and other works stand out clearly.

It is the camera which represents the main obstacle of the camoufleurs. But by clever grouping of photographic and visual camouflage a happy medium is struck. It will ever be a contest between the skill of the camoufleur on the one hand and the wits of the "picture reader" on the other. Fortunately for the former, anti-aircraft gunners prevent the airman from approaching closer than several thousand feet from the camouflaged objects. And this distance is the salvation of the art.

It is by no means to be assumed that the airman is the only one for whom camouflage is intended. The enemy on the ground and in observation balloons must also be deceived, bewildered and prevented from seeing all he wants to see. For that reason camouflage is also applied in the horizontal plane to foil the eyes of those in the trenches across the way. Listening posts are disguised in a thousand and one ways, and snipers' stations are effectively masked so as not to reveal their occupants engaged In shooting human game. Trench periscopes are made in the form of sandbags, and there are thousands of ways in which the enemy is fooled. Tanks, when going up to the attack, are bedecked in a coat of war paint, which would have brought hilarious joy to the most taciturn Indian warrior—reds, greens, blues, yellows, pinks. All these hues appear as in a mist on the steel sides of the tanks for camouflage purposes. Gaudy as the camouflage is, at a distance it blends into an indistinct neutral gray, and the outlines of the ugly monster are such that one cannot tell where they begin and where they leave off. How, then, can the German gunners spot their guns?

Camouflage is the very salvation of the machine gun. This weapon is the most deadly of all the terrible machinery of modern warfare; it is the lurking rattlesnake with leaden venom; it exacts a tremendous toll among the soldiers, so great, in fact, that it is the most dreaded of all. Soldiers who nonchalantly face the roar of heavy artillery and the drone of murderous airplanes pale at the rat-tat-tat of a solitary machine gun pound's somewhere in the dim distance.

It has therefore come to pass that an army will only attack after all the machine guns in front of it have been accounted for. It a single machine gun is known to be in working order, every cannon within range is turned in its direction in order to destroy it. In truth, a commander today does not hesitate to turn his twelve-inch guns on a solitary machine gun post in order to blast it from the face of the earth. So the machine gun, which forms the backbone of any defense, must be protected, and since steel and concrete are of little avail, its only protection lies in camouflage. Some of the cleverest camouflage is to be found in the concealment of machine guns.

Camouflage has a two-fold function: first. and as already discussed, to protect certain military works through concealment; second, to fool the enemy and draw his fire to take targets. In the latter case the enemy is made to waste his ammunition and at the same time the real targets near by are untouched. The most spectacular feats of camouflage have been those in the fake target class. Every army, at some time or another, has dug fake trenches and has constructed entire batteries of fake guns so as to draw enemy fire. At a height of 5,000 or more feet the air scout can be readily deceived; a barrel, a pair of discarded wagon wheels, a few pieces of wood and a few charges of black powder will make the most realistic howitzer; and a trench two feet in depth, manned with dummies, will convince the airmen above that an attack is forming. Thousands of shells are rained on such targets by enemy gunners—thousands of wasted rounds—while the real targets are untouched. It would be very interesting to know just how much ammunition has been wasted in this manner since the beginning of the war, but that is another fact which must forever remain behind the self-pride of all belligerents. At any rate, the aerial camera and the clever "picture reader" are making this form of camouflage increasingly difficult.

Camouflage is not a land war art exclusively; it has its application to marine warfare. As in the case of military camouflage, the naval branch has two broad objects: first, to decrease visibility; second, to confuse or fool the enemy.

By way of decreasing the visibility of vessels numerous schemes have been tried, but as yet the art is in its infancy. Indeed, in American ports there are to be seen large numbers of transatlantic steamships no two of which have the same kind of camouflage.

One system Intended to lower the visibility contemplates the use of the primary colors in varied proportions, areas and shapes of areas. This arrangement makes for a gray at a distance; a gray, it is said, that is far more effective than the flat war gray formerly employed on battleships. Another system contemplates the reduction or elimination of lights and shadows so that the darkest parts of the ship are lightened and the lightest parts are darkened, so as to produce a better blend with the sky and water. Still another system calls for a wave like painting of green, blue and white. so that the outlines of the hull will be lost in those of the surrounding water.

All of these systems have been tried, and since they continue to be employed it is safe to say they all have merit. But since, through the use of proper color screens or ray filters, the U-boat observers might hit upon a plan that would make the camouflaged ships stand out more prominently than if they were not so decorated, playing right into their hands, as it were. It is obvious that any specific details given out at this time are only apt to furnish the desired information to the ingenious Hun and in this way increase the toll which he is exacting.

There is no doubt that much can be done to lower the visibility of any ship by limiting its superstructure, particularly the masts and funnels. It would seem that the ideal ship, at present would one without masts and funnels, and making use of anthracite coal and forced draught while in the danger zone. Such a vessel would be invisible to the lurking U-boat even a few miles away, and it is quite conceivable that the U-boat would have to come across the inconspicuous steamers more or less through accident.

The submarine freighter idea has repeatedly come up in considering ways and means of combating the U-boat, and beyond doubt, despite some mechanical obstacles, this type of transport would prove most efficacious. In truth, the British are employing submerged barges which are towed by small oceangoing tugs, with excellent results, and, after all, these are nothing more than the submarine freighter idea.

Fooling the U-boat commander is accomplished by all manner of weird designs. One scheme is to confuse the U-boat's range finder by scrolls and curves in bright colors. A range finder functions best when trained on an object presenting a solid mass, and the disconcerting effect of a nightmare of color and shapes can be imagined by even the lay mind. Certain color schemes tend to give the ship a shortened appearance, while others cause a funnel to disappear so that the identity of the vessel is hidden. In still other instances, a vessel is painted so that a destroyer or U-boat appears to be alongside.

Then there is the matter of determining a vessel's speed. In order to aim a torpedo the U-boat commander must know the approximate speed of his victim and its direction of travel, so that he can aim his torpedo some distance ahead and cause it to arrive at a predetermined point at the same time as the target. Fake bow waves give the slow moving freighter the earmarks of an ocean greyhound.

Captain Fritz of the U-368, through the "eye" of his slippery craft, estimates the speed of [unnamed ship] to be about eighteen knots because of the high bow wave; whereas the tub is ploughing along at twelve knots. The result is that his torpedo misses.

Marine camouflage depends entirely keeping the U-boats beneath the waves. Just as long as the allied submarine chasers and torpedo boat destroyers roam the sea in large numbers and as long as the merchantmen are armed the U-boat must needs seek the shelter of the waves and shoot at its intended victim by the aim of its periscope. And it is far easier to fool the periscope than it is the human eye at the present stage of the campaign.

•••

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 /  

camouflage exhibit opens tomorrow / Washington DC

Opens tomorrow! Don't forget. Sunday, March 1. CAMOUFLAGE: Designed to Deceive. A wonderful new exhibition about camouflage at the International Spy Museum in Washington DC. As shown in the photo above, the museum building is itself a camouflage icon. See you there.

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 / 

FALSE COLORS: Art, Design and Modern Camouflage

CAMOUPEDIA: A Compendium of Research

on Art, Architecture and Camouflage

SHIP SHAPE: A Dazzle Camouflage Sourcebook

exciting new exhibition at spy museum coming soon

So discouraging. There was a time, not too many years ago, when I could speak fluently, without constant hems and haws, while being interviewed live for radio, television or documentary videos. I may have to call it quits for anything off-the-cuff. I'll be eighty years old in a few months, and in a live radio session recorded only yesterday, I proved all but incapable of completing a single sentence without stuttering, stumbling, or completely derailing my train of thought. Bummer.

The interview was conducted by a wonderful radio host named Ben Kieffer, who is featured daily at noon during the week on Iowa Public Radio on a program called River to River. He was wonderful, as was Kathryn Keane (who spoke so eloquently and without a single flaw), who is one of the top executives at the International Spy Museum in Washington DC.

Our tandem interviews came about because that museum is about to open a new, major exhibition about camouflage (called Camouflage: Designed to Deceive), beginning March 1 and continuing for three years. You can find out more about the exhibition contents online at the museum's website. And you'll also find details about the exhibition catalog (for which I wrote the introduction) online here.

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 / 

FALSE COLORS: Art, Design and Modern Camouflage

CAMOUPEDIA: A Compendium of Research

on Art, Architecture and Camouflage

SHIP SHAPE: A Dazzle Camouflage Sourcebook

who has been stealing my cigars—it surely is a puzzle

ARNOT ART GALLERY, Star-Gazette (Elmira, New York), 17 Dec 1918, p. 4—

The Arnot Art Gallery will be open this evening from 7 to 9 o'clock and every afternoon during the remainder of this week from 2 to 5 o'clock. Two hundred and sixty-six visitors called at the gallery Sunday to see the color concealment or camouflage pictures. They are very interesting and some of them will puzzle you a little to find the hidden bird. The principles of camouflage are embodied in these pictures.…

Can you find the cigar thief in the Victorian-era puzzle picture above?

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 / 

FALSE COLORS: Art, Design and Modern Camouflage

CAMOUPEDIA: A Compendium of Research

on Art, Architecture and Camouflage

SHIP SHAPE: A Dazzle Camouflage Sourcebook

a panoply of cartoonists' views of WWI camouflage

Roy R. Behrens © 2026

 

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 / 

FALSE COLORS: Art, Design and Modern Camouflage

CAMOUPEDIA: A Compendium of Research

on Art, Architecture and Camouflage

SHIP SHAPE: A Dazzle Camouflage Sourcebook

camouflage egg / do not begrudge conscientious fowl

Grant Wood, The Appraisal (1931)

Anon, HERE AND THERE in Country Life, January 1919—

Just because the hen has somehow gotten the reputation for being a stupid, flighty, indecisive creature is no reason, it appears, for denying her the right to deep-seated likes and dislikes. And sometimes we find these where we would least expect them, as did the Iowa Agricultural Experiment Station when it started an investigation into the relative efficiency of different kinds of nest eggs. As a result of exhaustive tests and careful compilation of data, it was found that above all other types of "camouflage egg" the hen prefers one made of plaster of paris; next in order of acceptability come wooden eggs; next after that real eggs; and lowest of all in popularity stand china eggs, probably the best known and most commonly used. By just what means the investigators interpreted the feelings of their subjects in the matter we do not know; nor does it matter. The point is: so long as the material used has no deleterious effect on the food or other value of the ultimate progeny of the bird, why begrudge the industrious, conscientious fowl the greatest possible solace and contentment during those weeks that she spends in calm, contemplative creation!

•••

Anon, CAMOUFLAGE IN THE WOOD in Brecon County Times, Neath Gazette and General Advertiser (Wales), September 7, 1918 (Supplement)—

The drafting of men for military service has brought to light some queer occupations, but surely none more out of the ordinary than that of the man who makes imitation pheasant eggs. A man before a Surrey Tribunal said his job was to make an egg which hoodwinked the sitting pheasant. The real eggs were transferred to a broody hen's keeping until near the time of hatching, and the hen pheasant kept at her job by means of the artificial "eggs." Then the real eggs were brought back to be hatched out by a mother who could look after them. These artificial "eggs," it seems, mislead the hen pheasant entirely, and cause foxes, hedgehogs and such marauders furiously to think. It seems rather like a yarn, but the Tribunal accepted it, and gave the man six months' exemption.

Also see: Mimicry, Metaphor and Mistake

before camouflage / modernists denigrated as crazy

Above Full-page article on Futurism in The Sun (New York), February 25, 1912.

•••

WAY TO TREAT THEM in The Stanstead Journal (Stanstead, Quebec), March 25, 1926—

"The way to treat cubism and dadaism and surrealism and all the other catch-penny fads is to laugh at them," sald [Guy] Pene du Bois [1884-1958], the art critic, at a dinner in New York.

"A super-realistic painter was giving an exhibition. He buttonholed a well-dressed chap—a good prospect, as they say in the business world—and led him up to a picture and began:

"'This will show you, old man, the thing I'm after. We super-realists, you see, strive for the purgation of the superfluous, we paint esoterically and not exotically, portraying nothing but the aura or inner urge. Do you follow me?'

"'Follow you?' said the prospect. 'Gosh, I'm ahead of you. I came out of the bug house last Monday.'"

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

will shoe makers soon decree that shoes be dissimilar

Above Giacomo Balla, Sketches for Futurist clothing (1914). See Caroline Galambosova, How Italian Futurism Influenced Fashion (2025).

•••

Anon, SHOES DIFFER IN COLOR from The Davenport Democrat and Leader (Davenport IA) on March 1, 1925, p. 3—

Futurism, cubism or some other art complex has descended upon French custom boot makers, who insist that they set the styles in women's shoes for the world. These boot makers all are of one mind in turning out symmetrical footwear. The first models of this year styles were shown, a few weeks ago. They seemed freakish, but the boot makers have carried their original ideas further until now one side of a shoe Is quite different, not only in design, but in color, from the other side. Humorists are speculating whether the makers will not soon decree that right and left shoes be entirely dissimilar.

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

is that a woman shampooing her cornfield?—say what!

Marthe Troly-Curtin, Phrynette's Letter from London, "River Reflections" in THE SKETCH, June 5, 1918, p. 276—

[I am reminded of] a little true yarn which of course is not apropos (oh, not at all!) but which may make you grin. It is a tale of one of yous, a pre-war painter, a famous one of the future. When war broke out he left his velvet coat for khaki, and went off whistling. He got wounded and was sent back home to a wife who objected to his pipe, and would tidy his studio and took unto herself the right to choose his models! He stood it for a little while, after which he tried to get back into the Army. The doctors, however, would not pass him for active service. A friend in authority advised him to apply for camouflage work, and obligingly took a few of his canvases to show the Red-Capped-One who Decideth one of the Futurist masterpieces.

"Humph, call that painting? What is it, anyway?"

"A woman shampooing her hair, Sir."

"Hair, is it? Looks more like a cornfield to me."

"Well, Sir, isn't that camouflage?"

And the Futurist one was fortunate, and is now camouflaging unflaggingly.

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

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

Cubist Camouflage / she had heard of Jacob Epstein

Jacob Epstein portrait by George Charles Beresford / 1916

Edith Nesbit, CUBIST CAMOUFLAGE, in the Melbourne Leader (Melbourne AU), July 27, 1918, p. 50—

Miss Morbydde was throughly up to date…[she] was abreast of her times; she had heard of the [Jacob] Epstein Venus, all right, and knew that there was an eccentricity called Cubism. That a pupil should desire instruction in this eccentric art seemed to be only one more of the surprises which modern life inexhaustibly supplied to Miss Morbydde. By the greatest good fortune a Cubist Artist was found not too far from the school, an elderly foreigner of obscure nationality and doubtful cleanliness, warranted, to Miss Morbydde’s experience, as wholly safe.

“Of course, I understand Cubist art,” she assured Sir Moses. “Another pupil is to have lessons this term. It happens that a Cubic Artist is available. An elderly foreigner. He occupies a lodge on my estate. He cuts wood; he admires the shape of the logs. All angles, you know. No, he is not mad. But he is wholly unattractive.”

Portrait of Jacob Epstein / photographer unknown

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