cut-out silhouettes of skunks / embedded figures

Cut-out silhouettes of skunks

Above In a recently posted video on Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage (2021) I demonstrate the use of cut-out silhouettes by American artist and naturalist Abbott H. Thayer, who worked in collaboration with his son, Gerald H. Thayer, in the study of protective coloration in nature. 

[During World War I] Thayer objected to the use of field service uniforms of plain, one-color fabric. He thought it was better to break it up, to counter the shading from overhead light, and to generally make it confusing.

At some point, he announced that he had come up with a simple method by which any soldier, in any setting, could determine his own best camouflage pattern. This too made use of cut-out silhouettes. All a soldier needed to do, Thayer proposed, is to cut out a silhouette of his own figure (or the generic shape of a man), and to study the colors and patterns that appeared in the hole of the figure when observed in his surroundings. He had already explored this photographically to recreate the patterns of, for example, birds and skunks [as shown above]…more>>>

• Nature, Art, and Camouflage (35 min. video talk) at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLX5YQF-H3k>

• Art, Women’s Rights, and Camouflage (29 min. video talk) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiSWNYCNRcM>

• Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage (26 min. video talk) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3asynn24nD4>

• Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage (28 min. video talk) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS2ZwYyxy1Y>

skilled cosmetic camouflage / disguised injured optics

James Montgomery Flagg (1905)

Above James Montgomery Flagg (best-known for his I Want You Uncle Sam poster), Cover illustration (with embedded figure or visual pun) for Life magazine, March 23, 1905.

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Abel Warshawsky, The memories of an American Impressionist. Kent OH: Kent State University Press, 1980, p. 30—

One Sunday, when as usual we were on our way to dine at the Kroll’s house, Leon Kroll surprised us by revealing an unsuspected side of his character. We were passing through a tough neighborhood after a heavy fall of snow, when we came upon a band of young roughs mercilessly pelting an old man with snowballs. When we tried to interfere, the band of hooligans turned on us, and we were obliged to make a fight for it. Kroll, who was of small physioque, was our first casualty. An old shoe, hitting him on the head, bowled him over down the area steps where we had taken our stand. In a moment, he was back, blazing with the lust of battle, a veritable David ready to slay his tens of thousands. His onset was so terrific that the enemy was soon put to flight. But there were several black eyes among us to tell the tale of the Sunday battle, and that evening we were to attend a concert! How to save our telltale faces! It was then we remembered the lower Bowery expert who painted out black eyes, and we proceeded to do likewise, so successfully that no one that evening or the next day noticed the traces of our combat.

Above Anon, detail from a cartoon from The Ogden Standard (Ogden UT), December 3, 1917, p. 11.

George Ross, BLACK EYE CAMOUFLAGE ARTIST TELLS MR. ROSS TWO OUT OF TEN ‘PATIENTS’ ARE WOMEN, in Times Daily (Florence AL), September 21, 1939—

NEW YORK, September 22, 1939—“Doctor” Edward Xiques, an amiable Greek who plies his practice amidst the flop houses on the Bowery, hums “Ch’ chonya” with amusement in his voice. “Ch” chonya” is Russian for “dark eyes” and the song, there, is a musical trademark for Dr. Xiques’ craft. He happens to be the only healer and camouflager of black eyes in the city. Or as his own business card promises, “Black eyes painted natural!”

And business has been rather good lately, As you might surmise, not the bulk of Dr. Xiqies’ trade stems from the flop houses in the nondescript Bowery, but from uptown where vanity is fancied.

He speaks smugly of the folk who have come down in expensive cars from Park Avenue to have shiners camouflaged, and he likes to tell about the silk-sheathed beauties who sneak down to his atelier to have a few bruises and a wounded optic well disguised.

As a matter of fact, two out of ten patients are women. That will give you some idea of the status of chivalry in Manhattan. In a specialized occupation like Dr. Xiques,’ discretion is the better part of valor. For example, he has never smiled when the patient explained that the bedpost, the doorknob or the phone receiver hit him. And he is resigned to the slamming taxi door, also. For save in the cases of unabashed pugilists, none of his patients have ever confessed to being the receiving end of a bare fist.

Disguising a black eye is anart with an orthodox background; the secret has been in Dr. Xiques’ family for three generations—but he is the last, probably, who ever will pursue it. After he bows out, folks will have to go back to raw beefsteaks, through Dr. Xiqus frowns upon a prime cut as an effective curative. He says you may as well decorate a black eye with a filet mignon or entrecote!

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.…

•••

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

attribute rhymes, proximity, and aligned continuities

suite of design-themed posters (designer unknown)

Camouflage artists are not alone in making use of unit-forming factors. As is evidenced by this series of posters, graphic designers make incessant daily use of attribute similarities, proximity, and aligned continuities. Each of these posters is a tribute to a different variety of design (they represent—from left to right—graphic, industrial, and interior design). While each is unique, they hold together as a suite, like a set of dinnerware, as variations on a theme. Recurrent circles (in the form of a plate, a sphere, and side views of a circular table and lamp) are an especially important motif. More>>>

bilious green and red-lead squares set diamondwise

HMS Mauretania

Arthur Riggs Stanley, With three armies: on and behind the western front. Indianapolis IN: Bobbs-Merril, 1918, pp.16-18—

Our little procession that night consisted of two hospital ships full of wounded going to Blighty, our own ship, and the usual convoy of destroyers. The weather was good for submarining, rainy, blowing half a gale, and black as a pocket. The enemy could creep up and wait in our path unobserved…

…What a day that one of swinging anchor was! Submarines outside—a new liner not yet on her maiden voyage but merely coming from the yards, torpedoed and destroyed—an American destroyer sunk—two big passenger liners sent to the bottom, one visible from our ship when we passed its location. Rumor was busy indeed. But we were on the home stretch, we had all of us seen much and learned  more; we were on an American ship with a veteran crew…

The ship itself was not painted a uniform war gray, but with a bluish-gray as a background, she was literally covered, hull, superstructure, funnels, spars, boats, everything with bilious green and red-lead squares, set diamondwise—camouflage at sea. When coming aboard a young airplane engine expert, with the rank of a Lieutenant-Commander of the Royal Naval Reserve, shivered at this hideous pleasantry, and all the way across missed meals and kept away from the bluest part of the smoking room.

two boys beneath a coat become a circus elephant

Above Page with text for children from Clarence F. Carroll and Sarah C. Brooks, The Brooks Primer. New York: Appleton, 1906. Public domain.

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John Lewis, Heath Robinson: artist and comic genius. New York: Harper and Row, 1973, p. 192—

The repeated use of the camouflage theme in [William] Heath Robinson's Second World War cartoons may have had something to do with the fact that his eldest son Oliver was a Camouflage officer in the British Army. 

•••

VIDEO LINKS

Nature, Art, and Camouflage  

Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage

 Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage

 Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage

a note to the camouflaged man who lifted my wallet

Above Anthropomorphic landscape, c1700s. Artist unknown.

•••

Milton Jones—

To the man on crutches, dressed in camouflage, who stole my wallet: You can hide but you can't run.

•••

VIDEO LINKS

Nature, Art, and Camouflage  

Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage

 Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage

 Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage

sex on an iowa farm / it is praying mantis party time

Photograph © Mary Snyder Behrens

Of late, we have had some interesting encounters on our five-acre wildlife refuge, and not just because the human race is rapidly self-destructing. As has happened every year since we first moved here in 1991, the monarch butterflies gathered in our grove of trees on their annual migration. Their numbers are conspicuously less than they were in earlier years, but may have been slightly stronger this year. For nearly a week, it is heartening to stroll among them as they fly around ones head, and, when the numbers are sufficient, to watch them change the leaves from green to orange as they hang suspended from the trees.

At nearly the same time, the hummingbirds have also been passing through in their usual abundant numbers, each of them fighting off the others for sole possession of an entire feeder, even if there are multiple feeding stations. They are unrelenting as they dive at one another, using their long, thin beaks as if they were fencing swords. Unheard of until this year, we found a dead hummingbird on the porch deck. It appeared to have a broken neck. It was adjacent to a feeding station, and may have crashed into a porch railing as it was being attacked. Holding its body in our hand, we were amazed to find that it was literally "as light as a feather." Regrettably, we didn't think of photographing it, and very soon it (apparently) blew away.

As if those events were not enough, even greater commotion was caused last week when Mary came running in from the garden to say that she had spotted a large female praying mantis. We both rushed out to see it (each year, we encounter at least one on our property, probably as a result of ordering a few egg cases many years ago from a garden supply catalog). But this time, we were even more fortunate. We watched her for a couple of days, as she grazed on grasshoppers. And then, about two days ago, when we went out to visit, we discovered that a male partner had discovered her, and we photographed them in the process of mating (see detail above, and full image below). Viewer discretion advised.

In the photograph at bottom, you may notice that the female is looking toward the camera (mantids have a curious human look because they can turn their heads like humans). She is not easily disturbed by observers, so perhaps she was looking at the tasty grasshopper at the right edge of the photograph. To find her (which is not always easy), we sometimes look for the discarded body parts of grasshoppers.

As we were observing all this, we began to wonder if the male mantid would be eaten by the female after having mated. It is rumored to happen, but apparently only about one in forty times. Or, in some instances, the male may kill the female. In this case, when we went out to observe them again that same afternoon, the party had ended. The male had left the female, and had returned to routine activities at a safe distance. Now, we will be on the lookout for an egg case.

Photograph © Mary Snyder Behrens 2021

Franz Marc as a WWI German artillery camoufleur

Franz Marc, Animals in a Forest

Above Franz Marc, Animals in a Forest (1914). In earlier paintings by Marc, figures are easily distinguished from their backgrounds. As his work evolved, animals and landscapes increasingly merged, progressing toward embedded figures. 

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Tim Newark, Camouflage. London: Thames and Hudson, 2007, p. 68—

[During World War I, the German army] recruited artists to disguise their weaponry. The most famous of these was Franz Marc, an Expressionist painter who served initially as a cavalryman. He wrote a revealing letter to his wife in February 1916 in which he told of the creative pleasure he derived from painting military tarpaulins by adapting the styles of great modern painters.

“The business has a totally practical purpose,” said Marc, “to hide artillery emplacements from airborne spotters and photography by covering them with tarpaulins in roughly pointillistic designs in the manner of bright natural camouflage. The distances which one has to reckon with are enormous—from an average height of 2000 meters—enemy aircraft never flies much lower than that…I am curious what effect the ‘Kandinskys’ will have at 2000 meters. The nine tarpaulins chart a development ‘from Manet to Kandinsky.’” 

Franz Marc (1910)

 

SEE ALSO

Nature, Art, and Camouflage (35 min. video talk)

Art, Women’s Rights, and Camouflage (29 min. video talk)

Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage (26 min. video talk)

Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage (28 min. video talk)

harlequin-patterned WWI dazzle ship camouflage

Above Photograph of a dazzle-camouflaged British troop ship, the RMS Mauretania, arriving in New York harbor, carrying infantry from Europe (December 1919). If compared with the 1914 theatrical photograph below, it is evident why the public commonly compared such checkerboard-patterned camouflage to a traditional harlequin’s costume. 

painted bridge camouflage during both world wars

Above Photograph (c1918) of a World War I-era camouflaged bridge in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, France, fifty miles southeast of Nancy. Note the painted scenic panel that spans the length of the bridge (in imitation of a row of buildings) and conceals the traffic crossing it.

Below is a newspaper account of the removal of bridge camouflage at the end of WWII.

•••

CAMOUFLAGE REMOVED FROM RIVER BRIDGE in The Valley Times (San Fernando Valley CA)  July 12, 1947—

One of the last objects to be relieved of its wartime coating of camouflage is the Los Angeles River bridge on Victory Boulevard between Glendale and Griffith Park.

I.M. Ridley of Burbank today is directing two crews removing the camouflage that was placed on the bridge about six yers ago to make it appear non-existent to possible enemy bombers. Three days will be required to sandblast the paint off and return the bridge to its former white cement finish.

Most of the bombshelters have been removed from around the county’s war plants. But many buildings that produced war goods still retain camouflage.

visual ambiguity / metaphors, camouflage, visual puns

Anon, French postcard, portrait of Bismarck

Today, I ran across an online essay (it's been online since 2017, and I've only just now found it) by American designer/illustrator  Catherine A. Moore, titled Seriously Funny: Metaphor and the Visual Pun. It is a well-written overview of ambiguity, especially puns and metaphors, both word- and image-based. 

The term ambiguity is commonly misunderstood. It doesn't imply a lack of meaning, but refers instead to the potential of multiple meanings. It comes from the same etymological root (ambi, meaning "both" or "on both sides") as ambidextrous, ambivalence, ambitious, ambience, amphitheater, and so on. In practice, it has lots to do with embedded figures (such as the pun-embellished portrait of Otto, Prince of Bismarck, shown above), with metaphors, and, by extension, camouflage.

Moore's essay is a wonderfully wide-ranging discussion of various kinds of word play, from which she moves on to examples of extraordinary visual puns (dare we call them image play) by such masterful practitioners as Christoph Niemann, Guy Billout, and, of course, René Magritte.

speeding up the daily production of ship camouflage

During World War I, did any of the ship camouflage artists come up with clever procedures by which they could speed up the daily production of dazzle designs?

The answer is affirmative, although we do not know to what extent these were actually put into practice. Among the most ingenious was a method that originated with an American Navy camoufleur named Everett L. Warner. It was he who oversaw the ship camoufleurs in Washington DC at the Design Subsection of the US Navy’s Camouflage Section. Not only did he originate this method, he also documented it with photographs and described it in an article that was later published.

Here is what we know about his innovative method of producing new schemes for the sides of ships: At some point, he discovered that the painters at the harbors, who were applying the schemes to the actual ships, did not fully understand how various distortions worked. As a result, he initiated the practice of requiring small groups of those painters to attend training sessions at the Design Subsection. The distortion effects were a challenge to explain, and Warner soon found it was helpful to have on hand a number of cut-up, variously-colored wooden scraps to use in demonstrations.

One day, while preparing these demonstrations, Warner inadvertently arranged a number of these scraps of wood on the surface of a table. With no particular purpose, a wooden model of a ship, painted in monochrome gray, had been placed on the same surface, so that it served as a contrasting background. At that point, Warner realized that he could easily rearrange the scraps, in all but an infinite number of ways, and then use that arrangement as a flat, confusing pattern on the surface of the ship. If the scraps were aligned at an oblique angle, the plain gray ship behind them would appear to be positioned at the same angle. more>>>

video / a dazzle advertisement of a dazzling discovery

Above A damaged, 19th century Swiss photograph of a small child in a white hat (just left of center) seated on her father's lap, with her mother standing at the right. Circumstances are such that, at first glance, some viewers interpret the child's face as the eye of a profile of Christ, facing left. 

Like the man in the moon, or a face in the clouds, this is an example of seeing apparently meaningful forms in random or accidental formations, called pareidolia. Unless of course (as might well be), the photograph has been altered, to increase the likelihood of seeing the figure. 

As I discuss in a new online 25-minute video talk, titled Art, Embedded Figures, and Camouflage, there is a long tradition of the purposeful insertion of embedded figures (or, as they are sometimes called, camouflaged figures), in picture puzzles and works of art. Here's a brief excerpt from the video narration, followed by the two advertising diagrams that it describes—

Not surprisingly, embedded figures have also been used in advertising. During World War I, for example, at the height of the public’s interest in dazzle-painted ship camouflage, this unidentified diagram was published in a British magazine, repeatedly—on the same page, in the same location—for several weeks. It simply read: A dazzle advertisement of a dazzling discovery. That was all that anyone knew. 

And then, suddenly, in the last week of the ad campaign, an “embedded figure” solution appeared, also on the same page, same place. Camouflage has its uses, it said, but Firth’s Stainless Steel needs no protective covering.

latest new renditions of dazzle-painted British ships

WWI ship diagrams / Steve Morris

Above Here are a few of our favorites from the latest vector interpretations of WWI British ship camouflage, part of an on-going project by Steve Morris, a Washington DC-area graphic designer and toy maker. These are simply astonishing. You can find many more, clearer and at larger size, at his website. What a remarkable undertaking.

We recently told the story of the involvement of American women during WWI in the application of a dazzle camouflage pattern to a land-based US Navy recruiting station, the USS Recruit, built to closely resemble a ship. For publicity purposes, the wooden imitation ship (located in the midst of all the traffic at Union Square in New York City) was painted in a colorful scheme in one day and overnight by the Women's Reserve Camouflage Corps. Learn more, see more about women's wartime contributions in this new online video (high resolution version).

New video / Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage

It is not widely realized that there were important connections between the rise of Modern-era art and literature, women's suffrage, and World War I. One of the most curious things they share is camouflage (including the formation of the Women's Reserve Camouflage Corps). Now accessible online is ART, WOMEN'S RIGHTS, AND CAMOUFLAGE, the second of a series of four new 30-minute video / talks about aspects of camouflage in the widest sense—military, zoological, psychological, and otherwise.

Free online video / The Hidden Story of Camouflage

I was so fortunate to appear in this wonderful film—titled RAZZLE DAZZLE: The Hidden Story of Camouflage—produced in Australia in 2019. It was fascinating to be interviewed for it, and to spend an extended time in Australia. It's now available online as a free documentary here. 

I am now in process of producing my own series of shorter videos on related subjects. Here is my very first attempt, as posted on YouTube. I'm working on my second today.

nature, art and camouflage / duplicitous uses of color

Now available online is a new 32-minute documentary video titled NATURE, ART AND CAMOUFLAGE: Duplicitous Uses of Color at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCH4DlyKahM>. It is a richly illustrated overview of four kinds of camouflage (blending, countershading, mimicry, and disruption), with examples of their common occurrence in nature, as well as their adoption as wartime deception strategies. A central aspect of the film is the involvement of artists in studies of both military and zoological camouflage, especially Abbott H. Thayer and Norman Wilkinson. A more recent, second video on ART, WOMEN'S RIGHTS, AND CAMOUFLAGE is accessible online at well.

talking to children about illusions at the Hearst Center

I had a great time this morning at the Hearst Center for the Arts, in Cedar Falls, Iowa, where I talked to a group of about 15 children about "illusions." I'm the big kid on the left, properly masked. I shared two of the Ames Demonstrations (that's a Rotating Trapezoid Window on a table in the front), red/green 3-D stereograms (which they loved), and ended by showing examples of World War I dazzle ship camouflage. 

The children asked some excellent questions, and the adult staff at the center were on their best behavior. I had a blast, and I think the young ones liked it too. It was not unlike a flashback, since more than 50 years ago, I began my career in the classroom as a teacher of 7th graders.

There are more posted photographs and a video clip on the Hearst Center's Instagram page.

The Anatomy of Color, and Nature's Colorful Palette

I am a decade past retirement age. Despite repeated half-hearted attempts to downsize my possessions, I still have a too-large collection of books. Many of them are exquisite, all but perfectly conceived, designed, and printed. How will I ever part with them? At last I’ve reached a compromise (or so I thought): Short of discarding the finest books, I have pledged to refrain from collecting significant new ones.

But I’ve fallen short of that as well. In recent months, I could not resist buying copies of two magnificent volumes, a misstep no doubt but one I am certain I’ll never regret. They are two stunning clothboard books about color (sorry, e-book editions will not suffice), both by British color expert Patrick Baty. One is titled The Anatomy of Color: The Story of Heritage Paints and Pigments (Thames and Hudson, 2017), and the other (only recently released) is all about color in nature, and—by implication, if not openly discussed—the role of color in camouflage. Produced by Baty and four contributors (Elaine Charwat, Peter Davidson, André Karticzek, and Giulia Simonini), it is titled Nature’s Palette: A Color Reference System from the Natural World (Princeton University Press, 2021).

Both volumes are simply astounding in every regard. Reproduced at top is a page of bird feathers from the volume on color in nature. Each book is 300 pages or more, and while this page is especially striking, there are many more examples, page after page, that are equally unforgettable.

mimicry, empathy, brevity, closure and camouflage

 Monroe Books in Berlin, Germany has recently published a book of camouflage-related essays and artworks titled Mimicry-Empathy, edited by German artist Susanne Bürner. Shown above is the front cover. On the back cover (below) is a list of those whose work is included.

Among the essays is our latest, titled "Simpatico on the patio: Empathic art, mimicry, and camouflage." That essay, which deals with the functional link between empathy, closure, and camouflage, is also available online here.  

new camouflage schemes for Royal Navy vessels

Those who follow this blog will no doubt recognize the name of Steve Morris, a Washington DC designer whose precise recreations of World War I ship camouflage schemes we have featured in the past. More recently, he shared the link to an article by Thomas Newdick at The War Zone (shown above), with an announcement and photographs of the newly-adopted policy of the British Royal Navy of painting certain of its patrol vessels in geometric dazzle camouflage schemes.

oh dear dear der goose dung all over der trouserz

Easily, one of our favorite people is David Attenborough, whose excellent documentary films on aspects of nature we have enjoyed immensely. He will soon turn 95, yet he is still appearing in films, in some of his finest productions yet.

Most recently and of particular note is Life in Color with David Attenborough, which premiered some weeks ago on BBC, and will be streaming on Netflix as of Thursday, April 22. This new series is of particular relevance to those who research camouflage, because it uses the latest filming techniques to determine how the vision of various animals differs from that of humans. This is especially important because it has all too often been assumed that animal coloration can be adequately assessed through human vision. It is a “must see” series.

In the meantime, British zoologist Martin Stevens, whose books on animal coloration (Animal Camouflage; Sensory Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution; and Cheats and Deceits) are among the very finest, has teamed up with Attenborough and the BBC to produce a dazzling, full-color companion volume titled Life in Color: How Animals See the World.  

That said, one can hardly mention David Attenborough without also calling to mind that wonderful story in his autobiography about a “colorful” appearance by Konrad Lorenz on an earlier BBC program. It is a classic, as quoted below.

•••

David Attenborough, Life on Air. London: BBC Books, 2002—

[During a live interview on BBC, Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz agreed to appear on camera, unrehearsed, with a greylag goose. Moments later,] a keeper from the London Zoo walked on to the set carrying a goose which he put down on a low table that stood between the professor and myself. The goose, naturally enough, was somewhat perturbed at suddenly being thrust under the bright televison lights and began to flap its wings.

“Komm, komm, mein Liebchen,” said Konrad, soothingly, putting his hands on either side of the goose’s body so that its wings were held folded down. He was holding it so that its head was pointed away from him. This was sensible in that he was not then within range of the goose’s beak which it showed every wish to use, if it got the chance. But that, of course, meant that its rear was pointing towards the professor and the goose, in the flurry, squirted a jet of liquid green dung straight at him.

“Oh dear dear,” said Konrad. “All over der trouserz.” He released the goose, which flapped off the set and was neatly fielded by its keeper, took out his handkerchief and carefully wiped his trousers clean. Then, finding his handerchief in his hand, in his embarrassment, he promptly blew his nose on it.

He completed the interview with a green smear down the side of his face…

camouflage / a dance of beatings the boy endured

Above Roy R. Behrens, Papa's Waltz (© 2021). Digital montage.

•••

Yesterday, I put up this blog post and montage (above) on The Poetry of Sight, my more generic blog about vision, design, and the creative process. But it occurs to me that it might also be appropriate to repost it here, since Theodore Roethke's language has everything to do with camouflage, with concealed and embedded components.

•••

The title of the montage reproduced above (I sometimes call them “visual poems”) is intended as an homage to what some people regard as Theodore Roethke’s finest work, a sixteen-line autobiographical poem, titled “My Papa’s Waltz” (c1942). It is beautifully constructed, filled with engagement and gesture—and is yet at the same time disturbing in its beneath-the-surface suggestions.

Roethke, as a poet should, makes apt use of figures of speech, and we (the readers) are left to decide what to make of it. Does “papa’s waltz” simply describe an innocent dance, in which an inebriated father is engaged in ritualistic fun with his son, a small boy. Or, as certain components suggest, is it not a literal waltz, but instead a frightening memory of dance-like beatings the boy endured at the hands of a drunken parent?

You must read the entire poem, which is available online at the website of the Poetry Foundation. At the same, it also helps to read the article about this poem on Wikipedia, and to learn about the life of Theodore Roethke.

the most delirious dazzle camouflage patterns of all

Above John Everett, paintings of World War I dazzle-painted British ships (c1919), issued as postcards after the war. Collection of Roy R. Behrens (gift of Les Coleman).

•••

Clair Price, THE CONVOY in Gundagai Independent and Pastoral, Agricultural and Mining Advocate (New South Wales), May 1, 1919—

Before the war, [the old ship] he adored had been a rusty tramp. Now she had a few shiny new rivets under a naval gun aft, and she was held together by some of the most delirious dazzle-paint that green hills ever blinked upon. She was purple waves. She was black freckles on a white background. Even her name was gone. Only her red ensign and the smudge of her Welsh coal remained.…

Marine camouflage is, at best, an experiment. It is not only intended to obscure the course and the distance of a vessel, but also to deprive the enemy of the straight lines of a vessel on which he has been accustomed to range. At the last-named purpose it is a distinctive success, but I have yet to find a naval officer to admit the usefulness of its success.

diagram of a ship camouflage viewing theatre in 1918

Recently, we devised a diagram of the type of observation theatre (equipped with an upsidedown periscope) that was first used by the British and then the Americans (and most likely other Allies too) for testing dazzle ship camouflage schemes during World War I. 

Reproduced above is the left half of the diagram, showing two camouflage artists. Included in the diagram are American Navy camoufleurs Kenneth MacIntire (taking notes), and Harold Van Buskirk, who is looking through the periscope, trying to determine the angle at which a camouflage-painted ship model is headed.

As shown below in the right half of the diagram, the ship model was placed on an adjustable turntable, on the other side of a barrier wall. Behind that turntable was a painted canvas background that could be changed to simulate various visibility factors, such as weather or surrounding. Illumination could also be changed. The turntable (or perhaps the surface on which it was mounted) was marked with degree increments. When the periscopic observer had rotated the ship model to an angle that appeared correct, the person on the other side of the wall could easily tell the exact degree to which the observer’s adjustment was mistaken. The greater the error, the more effective the scheme would likely be in deceiving the periscope calculations of a U-boat gunner.

An especially clear, succinct account of the entire process (albeit, not every detail is fully correct) was published in the New Zealand Tablet, on January 29, 1920, including the following excerpt—

…a small wooden model of each ship was made to scale, on which was painted a dazzle design. This was carefully studied in a prepared theatre through a submarine periscope, and when the design had been so altered and arranged that it gave the maximum distortion, the model was handed over to a trained plan-maker, who fitted that design to scale for the particular ship it was intended. The plan was then dispatched to the port at which the particular ship was lying, and transferred to the vessel. Thus a model and plan were made for every ship. For each type a number of designs were made, so that on arrival at port any ship requiring a dazzle plan could be immediately camouflaged. Sometimes as many as 100 vessels were being painted at the same time in one port.

Not all WWI ship camouflage testing theatres were constructed just like this. Some were less elaborate, even makeshift, while others differed in other regards, but the overall principle was the same. 

SEE ALSO

Nature, Art, and Camouflage (35 min. video talk)

Art, Women’s Rights, and Camouflage (29 min. video talk)

Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage (26 min. video talk)

Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage (28 min. video talk)

late night out / some little camouflage artist himself

Above Cartoon by Daniel Francis "Bud" Counihan, from the Evening World Daily Magazine, February 23, 1918.

like a chameleon / the checkered pattern of his clothes

Carolyn Lachner, Fernand Léger. Exhibition catalog. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1998, p. 52—

By September of 1939, six months after [French artist Fernand] Léger’s return to Paris, France was again at war with Germany. Early on, the war was more theory than fact: only half worried, Léger wrote Sara Murphy in October that thanks to friends in high places, he might be appointed director of camouflage, or perhaps minister of propaganda in a neutral country, and in December he let her know that he was still awaiting the call to camouflage France. In another six months, though, German troops advancing from Flanders had forced him to join the panicked crowds fleeing south. Writing to the Murphys from Vichy in September, he said, “If I manage to get to you, I will tell you about our departure…life on the road and the battle of trains,” on a more upbeat note adding, “If nothing else works out, then one could camouflage American airplanes, boats, clouds, Radio City etc.” The ever dependable Murphys had already cabled him funds, and Léger’s last American expedition was underway.

•••

Alexander Liberman, The Artist in His Studio. New York: Viking Press, 1968—

Léger wore a checkered shirt, and the violent patterns of his clothes against the violent pattern of his paintings made him seem like a chameleon.

camouflage ball at Willard Hotel and Lincoln's slippers

President Lincoln's bedroom slippers

Above Bedroom shoes given by Abraham Lincoln to the proprietor of the famous Willard Hotel in Washington DC. These are the slippers that Lincoln wore when he stayed at that hotel during his inaugural. Photograph by Carol M. Highsmith, c1985. Image courtesy Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Collection online here.

In March 1918, the two ballrooms at the Willard Hotel were transformed by members of the American Camouflage Corps, stationed at American University Camp, in preparation for a fundraising Camouflage Ball, to be held on Wednesday evening, March 6. 

The hotel’s large ballroom was given the appearance of “a quaint French village,” while the smaller one became a “sunny street in Italy.” The artists who designed all this were “past masters in the art of scene painting. When they get to France [to serve as wartime camoufleurs] they will fool [the enemy] into believing there are things where they aren’t but just at present they’re busy in making the Willard ballroom look like anything but a ballroom.”

•••

ENGLISH FACTORY GIRLS CAMOUFLAGE SHOES in Los Angeles Evening Express, January 2, 1918—

London, Jan. 2—Girl workers in the danger buildings at Woolwich arsenal are not allowed to wear jewelry. They have therefore hit on the idea of wearing colored shoe laces.

The Cap Shop girls appeared one morning with bright emerald green ribbons on their shoes, much to the envy of other departments. The next morning the whole factory was in the fashion, says the principal supervisor.

Shoes were tied with blue, pink, red, white ribbons; with anything but the government boot lace of untanned leather. The fashion spread to the office and women clerks paraded the platform during the dinner hour with resplendent shoe laces.

Gertrude Hoffman's perturbing lack of camouflage

Gertrude Hoffman as Salomé

LACK OF CAMOUFLAGE BY DANCER SHOCKS: Gertrude Hoffman Asks Church People If They Expect Portrayal of Greek Nymph in Overcoat and Galoshes in Oregon Daily Journal (Portland OR), November 8, 1917—

Chicago, Nov. 8—“Now really, good people, do you expect me to appear in an overcoat and galoshes when I am representing a Greek nymph?”

Thus did the delectable Gertrude Hoffman, pioneer of the cuticule school of dancing, reply today to allegations of the Women’s Church Federation that she is not sufficiently camouflaged during her appearances at a local theatre.

To the charge that she appears “nude below the thighs,” Gertrude replies that hundreds of our best people are appearing daily similarly sans culottes at the Florida and California beaches.

The limitations of Gertrude’s wardrobe are the subject of anxious conferences today between Chief of Police Schuettler and his censor of amusements.

Cover / Gertrude Hoffmann biography

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

Gertrude Hoffman

 

car dealers are the finest lot of camouflage experts

WWI camouflaged truck, source unknown

AUTO CAMOUFLAGE IS USED CAR DEALERS’ ART; NOT AN ARTIST in Omaha Daily Bee, November 4, 1917, p. 35—

When it becomes necessary, as shortly it will, to secure the services of expert camouflage operators, remarks The Commentator in the current issue of American Motorist, I hope the government will not overlook the finest lot of camouflagers in the world. Talk about our French disguisers, who can make a 10-ton gun look like a bologna sausage and thus protect it from German destruction, they are not in it with our American disguisers. Give any dealer in second-hand cars a chance and he’ll put it over any camouflagers that ever camouflaged a camer. What these second-hand distributors don’t know about making something look like something it is not, no foreigner that ever lived can teach them. There is a whole lot about this new war game we’ve go to be taught by those abroad, but when it comes to camouflage, so long as we have our second-hand automobile experts with us, we won’t have to get our educators in the disguising line from any place but home, sweet home.

not hardly the last of the (dreadful) camouflage jokes

Above THE LAST (?) OF THE CAMOUFLAGE JOKES, cartoon (artist's signature unclear) from London Opinion reprinted in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 3, 1919, with the following dialogue—

“Why this dazzle get-up?”

“Fact is, dear boy, when my beastly creditors do see me, I’m hoping they won’t have the least idea in which direction I’m going.”

•••

Untitled, in The Times Tribune (Scranton PA), June 20, 1918—

In gauging the speed of their prospective prey submersibles must base their reckoning on the sweep of a vessel’s lines from stern to stern. Recent tests off Sandy Hook [NJ, off New York Harbor] demonstrated that the interruption of these lines created by the zebra-like stripes of the camouflage artists causes errors up to 40 per cent, as to the knots per hour being negotiated by a bedaubed ship…Under normal conditions, observers are able to come within 2 per cent of a vessel’s speed, showing what protection the cubistic color scheme affords against the hostile torpedo.

NOTE  We found out recently that there was a French artist named Georges Taboureau (1879-1960), primarily known for his travel posters, who designed ship camouflage for the French during World War I. He frequently signed his work as Sandy Hook.

stage design, cubist nightmares, a toy shop gone mad

the life of camoufleur Carol Sax

Above In the past, we've posted various findings about Carol Sax (1885-1961), an Iowa-born theatre set designer who also worked as a ship camoufleur during World War I. In the current issue of The Iowa Source (February 2021) we have also now published an essay about aspects of his life.

RELATED LINKS

Optical science meets visual art 

Disruption versus dazzle 

Chicanery and conspicuousness 

Under the big top at Sims' circus

Walt Kuhn, the Penguin Club, and ship camouflage

USS Santa Teresa (1918)

Above USS Santa Teresa (1918), painted in dazzle camouflage scheme Type 14, Design E. 

•••

Manya Denenberg Rudina (1895-1975), DEATH STOPS THE SCULPTOR’S HAND: Sensations of an Artist’s Model, in The Pittsurgh Press, May 24, 1919, p. 6 (Chapter XXVII)—

[During World War I] Dozens of my friends entered successively the army or navy and practically all of them eventually went into one or the other division of the camouflage corps. One well-known artist for whom I had posed many times enlisted as a common seaman in the navy and spent his time swinging over the sides of ships putting on the streaks of paint to conceal them from periscopes of the submarines. Many an evening has seen a motley gathering of artists in uniform at the Penguin• [in New York], for many of them were stationed at the navy headquarters here and could get evenings off when their work was done.

We heard in confidence many of the devices that were being used to foil the U-boats, and the artists discussed this phase of the war, and the concealment of military works by means of camouflage, as earnestly as experts in ordinance and engineering discussed their problems of the war. 

• The Penguin Art Club on East 15th Street in New York, had been founded by American artist Walt Kuhn in 1917.

•••

Below A ship in the process of being painted in a dazzle camouflage scheme.

Note There are no full-color photographs of WWI ship camouflage. The originals of the black and white images above have been digitally “colorized” using AI software. While their light / dark values are accurate, the choice and location of colors, even when plausible, may not be literally correct.