Norman Wilkinson / UK dazzle camoufleur lives again

British artist / camoufleur Norman Wilkinson

Now here’s an odd discovery: The British artist Norman Wilkinson (we've blogged about him numerous times) is credited as the innovator of what is now commonly known as “dazzle painting,” the use of disruptive geometric designs during World War I for ship camouflage. His usual biographical dates are 1878-1971. Shown above is a portrait photograph from 1911 (restored and AI colorized), in advance of the war, at which time he was working for the Illustrated London News.

Here’s the oddity: On February 16, 1934, an article in the Glasgow Herald stated that—

Mr. Norman Wilkinson, the well-known scenic and poster artist, who died yesterday at his home in London, is perhaps best remembered as the inventor of naval camouflage during the war. For the sake of distinction, it was called “dazzle” painting, and its object was to so distort the normal appearance of a vessel that her actual course became a matter of doubt to an enemy submarine officer intending to torpedo the ship. Earlier forms of camouflage had proved much less successful than “dazzle” painting.…

That announcement of course does not comply with later accounts of Wilkinson’s life, which state that he died in 1971. Fortunately, in a subsequent issue (February 23), the Glasgow Herald said this instead—

We very much regret that in our issue of February 16 we published a paragraph announcing the death in London of Mr. Norman Wilkinson, “the scenic artist,” and remembering the versatility of the celebrated inventor of marine camouflage we assumed from the brief notice of information that it was he who had died. We therefore offer full apology to Mr.Wilkinson for the erroneous report unwittingly circulated and for the confusion and embarrassment inseparable from the addition of his name to the now considerable list of distinguished men who have lived to read their own obituary notices.

Wilkinson, Dazzle Scheme Components (c1917)

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

The gift of seeing resemblances

Jacky Bowring, “Revealing Concealment: The Strange Case of the MoMA Roof Garden” in Thresholds (MIT Press). Fall 2005, p. 17—

Camouflage and mimicry are predicated on concepts of simulation and resemblance, and the desire to produce and discern likeness is ingrained in human experience. In his 1933 essay, “On the Mimetic Faculty“ Walter Benjamin aligned mimetic imitation, or mimicry, with all of the “higher functions” of humanity, and pointed to a time when the “law of similarity” governed life, ruling both “microcosm and macrocosm.” Benjamin conceived of mimesis as a powerful impulse, and a desire to assimilate the self into the other, a social practice, as a foundation for art and language, stating, “nature creates similarities. One need only think of mimicry. The highest capacity for producing similarities, however, is man’s. His gift of seeing resemblances is nothing other than a rudiment of the powerful compulsion in former times to become and behave like something else. Perhaps there is none of his higher functions in which his mimetic faculty does not play a decisive role.”

Horsehead / Mole and Thomas

RELATED LINKS
The Living Photographs of Mole and Thomas
Mimicry, Metaphor, and Mistake
Embedded Figures in Art, Architecture and Design
Khaki to Khaki (dust to dust): The ubiquity of camouflage in human experience
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