Massachusetts painter / ship camoufleur Philip Little

Philip Little (1921)

The name of Philip Little (1857-1942) may already be familiar. He was a Massachusetts sea and landscape painter, whose studio was in New Salem. More to the point, he was interested in camouflage, and during World War I he experimented with ship camouflage. As we have blogged about before, in the collection of the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA) is his painted demonstration of how one might disguise a battleship by making it look like an island. In late 1917, two ships (the USS Yacona and the USS Aztec) were assigned to him for the purpose of testing his camouflage schemes.

In the fall of 1918, there was considerable news coverage of his use of what he called “reverse camouflage” (conspicuous high visibility) in attracting donors to a tent on the Boston Common for the purpose of raising funds for the Liberty Loan Drive (sadly, this was coincident with a massive worldwide flu epidemic). Yesterday, we found a passport photograph of him from 1921 (shown above), as well as a news article (see text and photograph below) in which he talks about his interest in ship camouflage.

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Anon, CAMOUFLAGE BOAT AND ITS INVENTOR, in the Boston Post, October 17, 1917—

“Now you see it and now you don’t.”

This is the expression that could be well applied to an object that has been mystifying sailors in Salem harbor, as well as thousands of people who dwell in close proximity to the shores.

On sunny days the object merges with the heat and blends itself into the horizon, and while you would declare that there was something on the water, you are not actually sure. On a dull day the object is equally elusive, losing itself in the gray of the sky line.

The only way to satisfy one’s curiosity is to row out and “find” the conundrum.

Mystery Solved
The “mystery” is none other than the fast 40-foot power boat Sagella owned by Philip Little, the Salem artist, who paints both landscapes and marines, and who is the front rank of painters in this country.

He has experimented with the new camouflage art, and there is probably not another man in the United States who has met with the success that he has. The Navy Department has adopted many of his suggestions, and already torpedo boat destroyers leaving New York harbor have been painted according to his specifications.

The Sagella is painted in waves of [unreadable], blues and pale green colors and is even deceptive to the camera. It is possible to get a picture of the boat only at close range.

Even at close range one cannot see where the water line on the boat merges with the waters in which it is riding.

“As far back at 1908, I got my first idea about camouflage,” said Mr. Little. “I was sailing off the coast of the Bahamas on a very hot day and I could just make out a wavy object miles away against the sky line. I could not make it plain with the naked eye and I resorted to the use of the spy glass. I could then only see that it was a two-masted ship, and its color was such that the heat waves made it almost invisible.

“I realized then that to get a wave effect [on] a boat with the right colors would be the only way to make good camouflage.

“I have tried that feature out with success, finding that light blue, light gray and pink and light green, [are] the colors that are best adapted.

“And by the way a definition of the word ‘camouflage’ might be of interest. The word ‘camouflage,’ as it is spelled, is a word of French coinage and really means ‘faking.’ The word ‘calamo flatus’ in Latin is no doubt from where it was derived. This Latin word means ‘to blow smoke in one’s face.’

“‘Camoflet’ is the French word that is correct, and this really resorts itself in English to the word ‘stifler.’ Camouflage is really the ‘stifler’ of any of the human senses.

“‘Gassing,’ [the] use of dummy cows, trees, shrubbery or anything to fool or overcome any of the senses of the enemy is camouflage.”

too old for draft Jean-Louis Forain serves nevertheless

Above Jean-Louis Forain, wartime sketch of a soldier writing a letter home, reproduced in the same news article quoted below. Forain's service as a camoufleur is also featured in this short video.

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Albert Franz Cochrane, …FORAIN… in the Boston Evening Transcript, August 15, 1931, Part 4, Page 3—

[During World War I, the famous French satririst and illustrator Jean-Louis] Forain not only helped keep up the spirits of his compatriots and their allies and influence the attitude of the neutrals by his terrible caricatures in Le Figaro, L’Opinion and L’Avenir, which, like those of the Hollander [Louis] Raemekers, were reproduced all over the world, but he actually entered the [French] Army, despite his sixty-two years, and rendered yeoman service there in the [Section de Camouflage] as right hand man of the camouflage chief, the painter Guirand de Scevola. 

When Forain presented himself booted, strapped and helmeted before [French officer Philippe] Pétain, the future Commander-in-chief, who is blessed with a quiet sense of humor, finding him [Forain], no doubt, a trifle “chesty” for an ex-civilian, [exclaimed] playfully, “Que dirait Forain s’il vous voyait!” (“What would Forain say if he could see you!”)

Below A younger Forain with his wife, Jeanne Bosc in a gondola in Venice. 

interview with camouflage scholar Camilla Wilkinson

In a July 2020 blog post, we shared a major article on World War I dazzle-patterned ship camouflage. It was written by British architect Camilla Wilkinson, who is the granddaughter of artist and poster designer Norman Wilkinson. He was the person who in 1917 successfully urged the adoption of high difference or disruptive ship camouflage [*see note below], which has since been referred to as dazzle camouflage. Her article, titled "Distortion, Illusion and Transformation: the Evolution of Dazzle Painting, a Camouflage System to Protect Allied Shipping from Unrestricted Submarine Warfare, 1917–1918," was published in Studia de Arte et Educatione, Number 14 (Krakow, Poland), 2019. The full text can be accessed online.

More recently, we’ve also found that Camilla Wilkinson, who is a senior lecturer at the University of Westminster, has since been featured in a 27-minute video interview (which can also be accessed online). The interview was produced in connection with a camouflage-related artwork exhibition at Quay Arts on the Isle of Wight, during March through June 2021. Titled Dazzle & Disrupt, it showcased the work of two artists, Jeannie Driver and Lisa Traxler.

* This links to an online video on the use of embedded figures in the design of dazzle camouflage. Unfortunately, as has been aptly noted in viewers' comments, I inadvertently stumbled into "horse crap" when, in the film's narration, I repeated the erroneous claim that American soldiers were called "doughboys" during WWI because of the color of their infantry uniforms. Instead, it seems that they had been called that since the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848, and it may instead be related to the color of adobe bricks—its origin is uncertain. Mea culpa.

Camoufleur John Dwight Bridge and Santa Barbara

A couple of years ago, we posted our findings about American artist and camoufleur John Dwight Bridge. Now, just a few months ago, a California historian named Hattie Beresford has published a far better article on him—better written and far more thoroughly researched—on a Montecito Journal site on the history of Santa Barbara CA. Above is a screen grab of its initial paragraphs.

pioneering aviator and camoufleur Mittie Taylor Brush

Above Group photograph of Mary (Mittie) Taylor Brush, with her children. Both she and her artist-husband, George De Forest Brush, were pioneering contributors to the study of camouflage, both natural and military. In some of their efforts, they collaborated with their Dublin NH neighbor, Abbott H. Thayer, as did their son, Gerome Brush, a sculptor (standing on the left in this photograph). Public domain, Archives of American Art. In 2016, we featured an earlier blogpost about Mittie Brush, but only recently have we found a substantial news feature about her invisible ariplane, the full text of which is found below.

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Earl Murphy, WIFE OF NOTED N[ew] E[ngland] ARTIST INVENTS INVISIBLE AIRPLANE—CARRIES IT OWN LANDING LIGHTS, in Boston Sunday Post, July 22, 1923, p. A4—

Here is an airplane that is invisible by day, that travels through the heavens at night like a giant firefly, lighting its own way to the landing field.

It is the invention of Mrs. Mittie Taylor Brush, wife of George De Forest Brush, the noted painter.

Mrs. Brush became deeply interested in aviation during the war [WWI] and has practically completed the experiments which resulted in a plane that sees without being seen.

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Thanks to Mrs. Mittie Taylor Brush, it will soon be unnecessary for you to get kinks in your neck from gazing at the airplanes that float overhead.

Pretty soon you won’t be able to see the contraptions at all and goodness knows, few of us are foolish enough to waste our time looking at something we can’t see.

Mrs. Brush, who is now at her summer home in Dublin NH, has an invention which makes airplanes invisible. Like the small boy, they will continue to be heard, but, unlike the small boy, they will not be seen.

Mrs. Brush is the wife of George De Forest Brush. And he is one of the world’s greatest living artists. That is why it seems strange that Mrs. Brush should be an inventor, that she should live in a world of stresses and strains and angles of refraction. The wife of an artist is expected to be somewhat of an artist herself. It is difficult to think of her as an extremely practical person, interested in mechanical things.

Flyer’s Bugaboo
To Mr. Brush, however, it is all very simple and natural.

“Art,” he has said, “is the purgation of the superfluous.”

And that is the answer.

Mrs. Brush is an artist. She is engaged in purging aviation of some of its superfluous difficulties.

The first is the matter of visibility. The second is that bugaboo of all fliers, the problem of selecting a safe landing place at night.

Why, you may ask, need an airplane be invisible?

It doesn’t need to be—at present.

But there were times during the war, when our aviators were flying over the battlefields in France, that an invisible plane would have been a handy thing.

It was during the war that Mr. Brush became interested in inventions for the development of the airplane. Mrs. Brush shared his interest. An artists who has devoted his life to his art naturally knows very little of carburators and valves and the intricate doohickies that make up a high-powered airplane engine. But he does know color. He has used color to give bodies to his ideals. Certainly he can use his colors to make material things as invisible as ideals. That is called camouflage.

Battleships were painted in weird streaks and patterns which made it hard for the enemy to see them. Trucks and tanks and guns were so treated that they would melt into the landscape.

The planes presented an entirely different problem.

It is very easy to see an airplane flying against the clear sky. Paint it what color you will, the drumming of its motor advertises its presence and its wings and body stand out in silhouette. With all his artistry and knowledge of color, Mr. Brush could not camouflage an airplane.

But Mrs. Brush could—and did.

Seated in an enormous living room of her farmhouses in Dublin, she told of it modestly enough. That living room is a wonderful place for the discussion of aviation. The ceiling is the roof. The rafters are bare. There is a huge fireplace, showshoes hang on the wall, and in a corner, an old-fashioned spinning wheel.

“It struck me,” said Mrs. Brush from the shelter of her wide-brimmed straw, “that if we couldn’t make a plane invisible with color, we might do it without color. After all, color is the only thing we see. If a thing has no color we cannot see it. We do not see a clean window. We look through it, as if it were not there at all. An airplane that has no color cannot be seen.

“The problem reduced itself to a matter of finding a transparent material to use for covering the wings in place of the ordinary linen. Glass would not due. It was too heavy. Experimenting was a dangerous business. I have never piloted a plane, but I have frequently gone up as a passenger. In flying, as in everything else, the only way to determine the value of an innovation is to try it out. That means flying and the risk of crashing if your scheme fails.

“We tried several things until I hit upon this celluloid composition. It is transparent, has the thickness and strength of linen and built on a base of course copper wire mesh, but the stuff ripped and split. When this material is used for wing covering, it is difficult to see a plane even at such a low altitude as 300 feet. The government took my invention, but the war ended before it could used extensively.

“We had a Bieriot plane down at Mineola [NY] in which we made several flights. It was covered with this material, which is called Chrystal. When we went up at night, it was necessary to build fires all around the field so that we could find our way to the landing place and avoid rough spots on the ground. This difficulty in landing is the great obstacle in the way of night flying.

“My success with the transparent wing covering encouraged me to go farther. If a plane can carry its own light it is independent of landing fields and guide lights on the earth. The automobile has the headlights and the driver picks out the road as he goes. The flyer has no such advantage.

Giant Firefly Soon
“A plane cannot carry powerful searchlights. The machinery required to generate sufficient power for the operation of such light is too heavy. In flying, every ounce counts. I set myself to work on developing reflectors that would use a 32-candle-power lamp—small enough to be lighted without the addition of any heavy apparatus. The reflector is the main thing. The light must be gathered and directed so as to give the effect of a large searchlight.

“As yet I have not obtained the results I want. We equipped a Chrystal plane with the lights, strung them out on the wings and around the body. We went up. The plane made a pretty sight with its lights glowing and the dark sky for a background—but when we tried to land we didn’t have enough light.

“This is my vacation time,” Mrs. Brush laughed, “but I’ll be back at work pretty soon and I’m sure I can make a success of the landing lights.”

When you read the report of some poor astronomer who has seen a gigantic firefly gleaming in the heavens, you will know that Mrs. Brush has succeeded. 

Gravestone of Mittie Taylor Brush

 

Margaret Fitzhugh Browne on WWI ship camouflage

Margaret Fitzhugh Browne, Self-Portrait

Above Self Portrait by Margaret Fitzhugh Browne (1884-1972). Browne was a Massachusetts portrait painter, and this is one of her finest works. She was also the art editor for the Boston Evening Transcript at the end of World War I. Presumably while serving in that capacity, she attended a public talk by American Impressionist Everett Longley Warner. Wartime censorship having been lifted, Warner spoke in great detail about his involvement in American ship camouflage, including so-called “dazzle painting.” Browne published a lengthy and especially vivid account of Warner’s lecture. Her complete text is published below. It may be one of the finest accounts of the process. For my overview of the same subject, see Disruption versus Dazzle: Prevalent Misunderstandings about World War I Ship Camouflage, as well as the four short videos listed at the end of this blog post.

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Margaret Fitzhugh Browne, TAKING DAZZLE OUT OF DAZZLE PAINTING: Lieutenant Everett L. Warner, an Artist in Charge of the Navy’s Camouflage Designs During the War, Explains Secrets of the Optical Illusions Created, in the Boston Evening Transcript. August 11, 1920, Part 2, Page 5—

Perhaps none of the devices and inventions of science used in the late war has had such a general and pictureque appeal as the subject of camouflage. Certainly the principles of none have been so apparently easy for the public to grasp, as the general acceptance of the term and its useful and established place in the language bear witness. But in spite of this wide understanding of the broad aims of camouflage—namely, to produce an optical illusion—there has been an almost universal misapprehension of its methods and principles. This has been especially the case in marine camouflage and was due to the fact that the many attempts to explain it were made by writers who, because of the close navy censorship, which was maintained even long after the armistice, had access to no reliable information. The result was that an emormous amount of false or misleading material was published even in periodicals of a semi-scientific character.

A most interesting and valuable opportunity to understand the true aims and principles of naval camouflage was afforded in a talk on the subject in Duxbury MA, under the auspices of the Duxbury Art Association, by Lieut. Everett L. Warner, who was in charge of the Section of Design of naval camouflage in Washington during the war.

Lieutenant Warner is an artist of high standing, a member of the artists’ colony at Lyme CT, with a studio in New York in the winter, and was one of the many artists who turned to account their imagination, ingenuity and years of training in the study of things as they appear in this branch of war service. His talk at the Duxbury Yacht Club was delightfully informal, full of interesting anecdotes and illustrated by lantern slides from photographs of ships or models made to demonstrate the camouflage designs.

Land and Marine Camouflage
Lieutenant Warner first emphasized the essential difference between land and marine camouflage, saying that the two had almost nothing in common, either in their methods or their aims. Land camouflage was more obviously a deception of the eye, as it attempted to make things invisible or make them look like something else. Whereas in the navy, though it was desirable to conceal the character or identity of a ship when possible, that was far from being the chief end of camouflage. The early experiments tried for “low visibility,” as it was called, almost exclusively, but it was soon found that the movement of the ship and the constantly changing and infinite variety of light upon her made such deception very uncertain.

Many suggestions along these lines, however, were submitted to the Navy Department throughout the war. One man had an elaborate scheme for painting the ship to look like an island with trees and houses and even a lighthouse on it—a suggestion which would have been only more complete by having the steamer’s smoke issue from the chimney of the lighthouse keeper’s house. Of course an obvious drawback to this plan was that as the ship was not stationary the camouflage would hardly be very convincing.

Another idea was that the ships be covered with mirrors, which it was supposed would reflect the surrounding sky and sea and so make the ship invisible. The originator of the plan, however, while he had realized one of the necessities of “low visibility” camouflage, namely, that it would have to change with every condition of sea and sky to be effective, still was far from a solution, as he did not recognize the fact that the mirrors would only reflect the sky and water behind the submarine, and not behind the ship to which they were applied, and that furthermore, with every roll of the ship, they would flash alternatively light and dark, greatly increasing her visibility; a condition which the Navy had realized and tried to eliminate by giving up entirely the use of any glossy paint or bright surfaces on the ships. Other imaginative minds suggested such things as enveloping the ship in a net to make her look like a cloud on the horizon, or painting a destroyer on her sides so that she would appear to be closely convoyed—a scheme which would, of course, have its only chance of deception when she was exactly broadside on to the submarine.

Low Visibility Abandoned
Doubtless the people who submitted these kindred ideas for “low visibility,” and, in fact, the public at large, have wondered how the crazy zig-zag patterns with which the ships were painted could possibly achieve this result, and it certainly did seem as if the vessels were made more noticeable by them. The truth of the matter was that the designers and experimenters with marine camouflage did not make ships invisible simply because they couldn’t, and the patterns on the ships were not designed with that in view. It was soon discovered that a method of painting which could make a ship less visible on one kind of day made her more visible on another, and that a paint which would look dark on sunny days would appear most white on cloudy days, in contrast with gray skies and seas. Then, too, the microphone, a listening device by which a submerged submarine could hear the engines of a moving vessel at a distance of as much as twelve miles, and could often hear and roughly determine the position of a steamer long before it could be seen, rendered the reduced visibility of ships of doubtful value.

As an illustration of the extreme delicacy of this instrument, Lieutenant Warner told of an experience of the British Q-boat Barranca, while hunting submarines. A German U-boat was located by microphone on the bottom of the sea, where, as it was before the days of depth bombs, she was safe from attack, though the listener at the instrument on the Barranca could plainly hear a phonograph playing German songs on the U-boat below.

The development of this marvelous instrument forced the scientists to come to the conclusion that there was nothing to be done but to evolve a color of the lowest visibility and paint the ships with that without any further attempts at camouflage. But the imagination of the artists had been aroused and they would not give up. The idea of “dazzle painting,” as it was ultimately known, was finally conceived by a British artist, Norman Wilkinson. In the spring of 1917 he presented to the British Admiralty his plan. This was the use of strongly contrasted designs which so distorted the appearance of the ship that it was difficult to determine her course. He argued that though it had not proved possible to paint a vessel so that she was hard to see, it was still possible to paint her so that she would be hard to hit, and that as she could be both seen and heard anyway, a method of painting which rendered her more invisible would lessen her danger from torpedo attack if it distorted her course.

Spoiling the Torpedoes’ Aim
From then on the basic idea of marine camouflage was, not to make a ship difficult to see or to change her character, but to make it difficult for a submarine to determine the course which she was traveling. The submarine, after locating her prey, tries to reach a good position for firing by keeping submerged and thrusting up her periscope at as long intervals and for as short periods as possible. A ship whose course was puzzling would force the submarine to keep her periscope up longer, and the chances were that she would be seen and her quarry make its escape before she put up her periscope to locate it again. Furthermore, as the ships cannot be fired at point blank, owing to the slow rate of speed at which a torpedo travels, the range must be determined with the greatest accuracy, and the torpedo aimed so as to meet the ship at a given point on her course. The slightest mistake in the estimation of her course would send the torpedo harmlessly ahead or astern of her, and “dazzle painting,” by distorting the course, frequently caused the U-boats to take up the wrong position, and spoiled the accuracy of their long shots.

That the Germans fully realized the importance of determing the true course of a ship is shown by a quotation which Lieutenant Warner gave from the confidential manual issued for the instruction of German submarine officers at Kiel. A copy of this was secured by the British Secret Service and passed on to us through the office of Naval Intelligence. In this manual it was stated that “the determination of the track angle of the enemy’s course is the foundation of the whole art of firing submerged.”

Now that the importance and value of course distortion was generally accepted, the next step was the principles of design and pattern which would produce this result. At first the work was carried on by means of countless experiments with one pattern after another, and the English evolved some very successful designs in this way. Lieutenant Commander Wilkinson, the originator of the idea, came to this country for a month and gave our navy the benefit of the British experience in ship camouflage. Lieutenant Warner worked with him and many of the devices and patterns which the English had found resulted in “course distortion” were adopted by our Navy, but it was not until some time afterwards that the principles underlying these results were understood and the general law governing the effect produced was discovered.

Working with Models
As everyone knows, teaching a subject involves reducing it to its basic principles and putting the principles in a clear and easily understood form, and it was largely through explaining the “dazzle painting” to the camoufleurs of the Shipping Board, whose duty it was to apply the navy designs to the ships, that the subject was put upon a practical basis of procedure, having a logical certainty of result. To secure more complete cooperation and that they might better understand the principles underlying the designs, three of the camoufleurs came to Washington each week for an intensive course given by the camouflage designers.There, in the Navy Department’s camouflage theatre, they were shown the little models of the different types of ships, carefully made to scale, with which the camouflage designers made their experiments. The ships were painted with different dazzle designs, placed upon the turntable and viewed through a periscope to determine whether the camouflage gave the necessary course distortion before the designs were approved and issued for use.

In order that the camoufleurs might be more familiar with the basic construction of the patterns, Lieutenant Warner had made a number of wooden blocks of different geometric shapes, which could be arranged in imitation of the patterns applied to the ships, and it was gradually discovered that every successful pattern, whether based on geometric or any other form, was capable of explanation along the same lines, and was governed by the laws of perspective.

One of the most successful methods of producng course distortion was that of projecting upon the ship’s sides a pattern consisting of a series of forms which apparently turned towards or away from the observer, according to the way in which they were drawn, with the result that the ship appeared to be steering in the direction indicated by the pattern.

Illusion of this sort is familiar to everyone in scene painting, or, in fact, any pictorial representation, and Lieutenant Warner gave an illustration which should make the principle clear, even to those not accustomed, like the painter, architect or sculptor, to realize the changes in the appearance of objects seen at different angles, and of course explainable by the laws of perspective. For instance, a row of bathhouses along a curving beach painted upon the backdrop of a stage would look equally convincing if that backdrop were erected upon an actual beach. The beach and houses would appear to be curving away, though in reality painted upon a flat surface. The same principles of perspective applied to a pattern made up of geometric forms painted upon a ship’s sides would make her appear to be turning away from the observer when she was actually broadside on.

Other methods of producing an optical illusion were also used such as parallel, vertical bands to make a ship look taller and to conceal smokestacks or confuse her construction, and so make it difficult to fix upon a point in calculating the range. Broad bands were sometimes painted upon her sides at such angles as to create the illusion of a bow in advance of her real bow, and the lights and darks cause by her actual construction were confused by the application of fictitious structural shadows painted upon her.

The matter of color was not of importance in “dazzle painting,” dealing as it did with the distortion of form, and though many experiments with color were tried especially in the earlier attempts for “low visibility,” it was finally demonstrated that values or degrees of light and dark were of more importance, and some of the best results were obtained with only blacks and grays, though blue was frequently used, in the hope that it might on certain days blend with the sea or sky and so add to the distortion of the form of the ship and obscure the direction of the course upon which she was traveling.

The success of camouflage cannot, of course, be definitely demonstrated, owing to all the other factors which enter into the matter of a ship’s safety, but the navy statistics in comparing the losses among the camouflage and un-camouflaged ships are so greatly in favor of the former as practically to prove its success. Its future is, of course, problematical. In the event of another war it would, without doubt, be carried even further and its field widened. There may be a future for it in peace, however, for if ships can be painted so as to distort their course they could be made to show more clearly the direction in which they are traveling and so lessen the chances of collision and miscalculation.

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See also 

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Fitzhugh_Browne>

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)

optical camouflage based on Maxwell's spinning disks

One of the earliest, most important contributors to World War I ship camouflage was an American muralist named William Andrew Mackay (1876-1939). He is best known for having created a series of murals about the achievements of Theodore Roosevelt, which are housed in the rotunda of the Roosevelt Memorial Hall of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In advance of WWI, he began to experiment with optical color mixtures in the camouflage of submarines, which he demonstrated with spinning colored disks that had been developed earlier by James Clerk Maxwell. A detailed, richly illustrated account of Mackay's camouflage-related research is accessible online here, and is also downloadable online here.

• 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>

Jan Koenderink / to see is to sneeze—in this respect

Jan Koenderink, “Vision as a User Interface” in Proceedings SPIE 7865, Human Vision and Electronic Imaging XVI, 786504 (February 4, 2011)—

Visual awareness is proto-mind stuff. Here I am thinking of the Gestalts or the classical illusions, which are cognitively inpenetrable. Even if you are an expert on a certain illusion, you still see it, cognition doesn’t make it go away. Likewise, a Gestalt like the famous Kanizsa triangle [as shown above] is stubbornly there—in your visual awareness, even though you know that “there is no triangle.” Visual awareness is presentation in the sense that it simply happens to you. Nothing you can do about it, nor are you responsible for the presentations you have. It is much like sneezing in this respect.

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