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| dazzle camouflage |
Two years later [in 1917] the British navy went in for something they called dazzle painting. With the help of black, white and blue paint laid on in abstract figures the great gray battleships were transformed so thoroughly that it was impossible to tell bow from stern or make out contours or shapes. The heavy hulls became light and airy in their new harlequin dress. Incidentally, it is remarkable to see how strongly this painting—seemingly laid on quite at random—was determined by the artistic idiom of the day. This becomes apparent when it is compared with the camouflage painting of the second world war. Where before the colors had been bright they were now muddy, and instead of the straight lines and triangles of the early camouflage there were now sinuous outlines and undulating shapes.
NOTE: There are two misleading statements in this paragraph: It is suggested that dazzle painting patterns were "laid out quite at random," which may have been true in some small number of cases but certainly not in most. Second, it may or may not be the case that ship camouflage "was determined [a better word is "influenced"] by the artistic idiom of the day" (although that is commonly claimed). In our collection, we may have more photographs of disruptively-camouflaged ships from WWII than from WWI. See also this short video on "embedded figures" in relation to ship camouflage.
