now you see ‘em, now you don’t / Alexander Sprunt Jr

Above Title page from "Masterpieces of Navy Camouflage" by Lloyd Seaman. Popular Mechanics, 1919, pp. 217-219.

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Alexander Sprunt Jr, Now You See ‘Em, Now You Don’t. American Legion Monthly, June 1932, pp. 14ff—

During the World War much attention was directed to what was commonly called “camouflage.” Guns, munition dumps, airdromes, roads and ships were decked out in astounding color schemes of broken lines, circles and angles. It was not always the aim to render the camouflaged object inconspicuous, but rather to break up its actual shape and outline as to thoroughly confuse the observer. This was particularly true of marine camouflage. It was not possible to make such a huge vessel as the Leviathan inconspicuous at sea, but it was possible to render it so confusing an object in a combination of angles and tangents that a submarine observer could not be certain of its direction and vital parts. It might appear shorter or longer than it actually way; it might appear to be taking a course varying from the real one followed. At any rate, camouflaged ships so frequently misled the enemy that the firing of a torpedo could very well result in a miss and often did, whereas, without the weird color combinations employed, a hit would have been the case.

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dazzle-camouflaged corporate interior in West London

The headquarters of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is located in White City, West London, in a cluster of buildings commonly known as the BBC Media Village. Near the inside entrance of the Broadcast Center is an “art wall” that, in part, is a reminder of World War I-era dazzle-camouflaged ships. Designed by British artist Simon Patterson, its disruptive black and white stripes (as shown here) also includes the names of various people who have worked “behind the scenes” at that corporation.  For more information, see Karen Dale and Gibson Burrell, The spaces of organization and the organization of space. London: Bloomsbury, 2008.

to conceal and reveal / tandem aspects of camouflage

In 1917, when the US entered World War I, it was decided that artists, architects, set designers, and others would be recruited as camouflage practitioners. As a result, various civilian US schools began to offer courses in camouflage design. In this government photograph from 1918, a camouflage instructor at Columbia University is shown at work on a demonstration of “high difference” or “disruptive” ship camouflage, also known as “dazzle.” The same policy was continued during WWII.

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Donald Oenslager, The Theatre of Donald Oenslager. Middleton CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1978, p. 12—

Then came those barren years of World War II. My abrupt transfer from my private world of stage design to the defensive world of camouflage was dramatic. I discovered that the temporary characteristics of stage design and camouflage are synonymous. With the same tricks one conceals what exists and by the corollary reveals what does not exist.

Russian Constructivism, ballet and dazzle camouflage

Ballets Russes performers

During the years 1909 through 1929, there flourished a popular European ballet company, known as the Ballets Russes or the Russian Ballet. Beginning in Paris, it performed throughout Europe, and toured in North and South America. Despite its name, the company did not perform in Russia, where the Russian Revolution was ongoing. It was wildly popular and much talked about because of the highly unusual manner in which it made use of choreography, costumes, music, as well as strangely stylized poses in dance.

Coincident to some extent with the Ballets Russes was the rise of Russian Constructivism, a branch of Modernist abstract art, of which the leading practioners were El Lizzitsky, Alexandr Rodchenko, Vladimir Tatlin, and others, both men and women.

They saw themselves not as “artists” but as something more akin to architect-designers, or what might be called “constructors.” It was not their intention to imitate or “make images of” existing phenomena, but to invent or “construct” new configurations, that tended to resemble abstract diagrams. When one compares iconic examples of Russian Constructivism—such as El Lizzitsky’s famous self-portrait with a compass, or his photograph of a hand with a compass (shown here)—with the all but abstract poses of performers in the Ballets Russes, their resemblance is undeniable.

El Lizzitsky, self-portrait photomontage

 

At the time, others saw a connection between the stylized movements of dancers in the Ballets Russes and the colorful, geometric designs that were applied to merchant ships as camouflage during World War I (called “dazzle camouflage”). In a 1918 news story about ship camouflage, it was said that some of the camouflaged ships in the war zone were “made up like [the] Russian ballet.” Another journalist described dazzle painting as “a Russian toy shop gone mad.”

One of the funniest portrayals of the Russian Ballet was a cartoon (shown here) by British artist W.K. Haselden that appeared in the Daily Mirror on November 24, 1924. Titled “Twentieth century ballet for everyday use,” it illustrates how peculiar daily life might be if everyone moved about in the manner of Ballets Russes performers. It is poking fun at the famous performers of course, but it is clear that the cartoonist admires them. The caption at the bottom reads: “The return of the delightful Russian Ballet suggests a new form of amusement for country-based parties. The advantage would be that the costumes would be [at hand and ready to use].”

There is available online a two-hour film documentary on the Ballets Russes. Of late, I have been building a series of digital montage artworks that commemorate the Ballets Russes, as in the example below. But I also talk about Russian Constructivism (and El Lizzitsky) in my own video on the Bauhaus and problem-solving. 

Ballet Russes digital montage © Roy R. Behrens 2023

 

dazzle camouflaged troop ship arrives from europe

Above Cover illustration for the sheet music for Will D. Cobb and Gus Edwards, “Welcome Home, Laddie Boy, Welcome Home” published by M. Witmark and Sons, 1918. Notice the dazzle-camouflaged troop ship in the background (labeled L'Marne).

FULL TEXT ONLINE BOOKLETS

Optical science meets visual art

Disruption versus dazzle

Chicanery and conspicuousness

Under the big top at Sims' circus

WWI / camouflage events and The Graphic magazine

Cover / Louis J. Treviso (1917)

Above Cover illustration for The Graphic (Los Angeles), December 20, 1917, as designed by Louis J. Treviso (also signed by sometime collaborator Ray Winters). Born in Phoenix AZ in 1888, it is believed that Treviso's Mexican parents were enroute from Mexico to Phoenix when he was born in a covered wagon. It is said that he grew up among Native Americans, then moved to Los Angeles as a teenager. As a young illustrator, he achieved national attention for his posters for the Santa Fe Railway, which may have led to his cover illustrations (this may be the finest) for the much admired (if little-known) Los Angeles arts and culture magazine, The Graphic (1884-1918). The history of that magazine is discussed in detail online here.

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There is an additional curious aspect of this same issue of The Graphic, a periodical that typically reported on the activities and achievements of notable citizens in Southern California society. There is in this issue a column titled “This Week in Society,” which includes a detailed account of an elborate “camouflage-themed” wedding celebration for a prominent couple in San Diego, in which Lapham Loomis Brundred married Jean Miller. 

In December 1917, the US had only just entered World War I, and had only begun to recruit artists, designers and architects to serve as camouflage artists, also known as camoufleurs. Among civilian society groups, it soon became common to encourage support of the war, increase enlistments, and engage in fundraising through "camouflage-themed" costume balls, rallies, and other public and private events. The article excerpted here provides a description of an early example of those events in 1917 at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego—

Among the many artistic affairs given at the famous watering place [Hotel del Coronado] was the unique dinner Friday evening with which Mr. John J. Hernan entertained, honoring Miss Jean Miller and her fiance Captain Lapham Loomis Brundred, whose wedding in St Paul’s Church, San Diego, was one of the brilliant military and social events in the seaside city. The settings for the affair were all “camouflage,” from the entrance into the communicating trench, where boughs of trees lined the walls. An immense airplane of crimson roses and foliage was suspended overhead, and great baskets and vases of pink rosebuds and foliage added a touch. The first line trench, marked by an immense sign, led into the fortifications (in the green banquet room). Here the entire room was transformed into a wooded valley, the immense fort “camouflaged” with canvas, and strewn with leaves and branches of eucalyptus, tiny electric lights glowing through the foliage. As the party emerged through the connecting door, the “immense guns” boomed forth a welcome, followed by tiny machine guns, and the orchestra, also camouflaged behind banks of trees, played “Over There.” When the immense white “camouflaged canvas” was removed, the table represented a miniature scene of the valley, hills, mountains and desert, at one end Balboa Park camp and at the other “Brundredville,” the sign posts reading “Some City Somewhere in America.” In the center of the plain rose the Rocky Mountains with cactus and rocks, the desert stretch of country reaching to “Brundredville.” On the other side was sunny California, with its wealth of roses and flowers, while around the whole ran the bridal train of its steel tracks bearing the bridal couple to their destination in “Brundredville.” Pink rosebuds and foliage ordered the tracks, and telegraph poles with their slender lines carried messages of congratulation, while tiny electric globes on tall posts lighted the way to happiness. The menu was especially camouflage, from the soup hidden beneath tin cans, butter pats under immense green bell peppers; crab Ravigotti, in Hearts of Lettuce; salted almonds in walnuts; olives in tomatoes; tenderloin of beef under crab shells; sherbet in rosy apples; Mallard duck beneath cabbage leaves; celery salad in carrot shells; creams in oranges, cakes in bread rolls and the demi-tasse in cocoanut shells. The hand-painted sketches of Coronado scenes marked covers for thirty guests. The whole affair was one of the most artistic ever given at the famous watering place. In the child’s vernacular “Everything was what it wasn’t,” being a clever explanation of the menu and entire effect. 

SEE ALSO

• Optical science meets visual art
• Disruption versus dazzle
• Chicanery and conspicuousness
• Under the big top at Sims' circus

was Cleopatra's Barge first case of ship camouflage

Above Cover of Paul F. Johnston, Shipwrecked in Paradise: Cleopatra's Barge in Hawai’i. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2015.  

Cleopatra’s Barge was the name of a lavish Egyptian-themed popular lounge (now permanently closed) at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. 

But long in advance of that, it was also the name of an oceangoing yacht, a “pleasure yacht,” built in Massachusetts in 1816 for George Crowninshield Jr. Six years later, it was sold to the King of Hawaii, Kamehameha II. A detailed account can be found online. It was known for its extravagant furnishings, indoor plumbing, and other features, including (as shown above in the cover of a book about it) surface patterns that (some have said) might have functioned like the confusing zigzag patterns applied to World War I ships for camouflage (called dazzle painting). Colorful horizontal stripes were painted on the starboard side, with a herringbone pattern on the port side (as shown in the painting). 

An article discussing this—Ernest S. Dodge, “Cleopatra’s Barge: America’s First Deep-Water Yacht”—was published in Motor Boating, December 1954, of which the following is excerpted (p. 104)—

In the early nineteenth century ships were brightly painted. Monotonous black topsides and painted ports were not yet generally fashionable. But Cleopatra’s Barge exceeded her contemporaries in the gaiety of her paint job as in most other things. Her starboard side, decorated with many horizontal stripes, in a variety of colors, was the more conventional. But to port she reflected her owner’s fancy and unorthodox taste with an unusual herringbone design. When seen from opposite sides she resembled two different vessels—the first case of ship camouflage on record. It is doubtful, however, if the camouflage was deliberate as has been claimed by those who believe that George [Crowninshield Jr] actually built the yacht to attempt a rescue of Napoleon from St. Helena. Rather was it one more example of his taste for the startling and unusual. 

Anon, portrait drawing of Kamehameha II

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Dazzle Camouflage: What is it and how did it work?

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artist Alan Collier / whose training was on civvy street

Above Alan Caswell Collier (1911-1990), All Is Green and Gold, 1974, oil on canvas. Collier was a Canadian landscape artist. Born in Toronto, he studied at the Ontario College of Art and the Art Students League, New York. During the final years of World War II, he served in the Canadian Army. The statement below is from an interview of Collier by Paul Bennett, conducted in an exhibition catalog, Retrospective. Oshawa, Ontario CA: Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 1971, pp. 14-15—

When I was drafted into the army they asked me, when they saw my background if I wanted to go into camouflage. I decided that if I wasn't going to be a war artist, with a commission and so on, to hell with it; my training was on Civvy Street and I wasn't going to go in and be a private in the army and do art work as a private. I felt that I wanted something better than that, so I just said no, I did not want to go in the camouflage; I don't regret that I went into artillery survey. 

ship camouflage artist remembers Norman Wilkinson

Rogers' ship camouflage proposal

Good news!  A long-lost camoufleur has now been rediscovered. I have only now unearthed a British-American writer and illustrator, named Stanley R.H. Rogers (1887-1961), who wrote about thirty books (a differing source says fifty), many of which are his illustrated accounts of maritime history and exploration. 

Of further interest is the fact that he contributed to ship camouflage, American and British, in both world wars. I discovered this in one of his books, Freak Ships (New York: Greenberg Publishers, 1936), a book about odd aspects of maritime history. In that book, he includes three of his drawings of WWI-era ship camouflage, as reproduced in this blog post.

In the first drawing, he shows a plan for ship camouflage (above) that he himself submitted to the US Navy Department, early in the war (c1917-18). His proposal was turned down—he says thankfully—as being ineffective.

I was not sorry my designs were rejected [he states, because] they were based on the general rule that vessels show dark against the skyline, and by painting them in wavy horizontal dazzle bands of pale hues, the bands near the water being darker than those on the superstructure which tried to effect a compromise with the tone of the sky. Obviously a compromise, since the changing light of the sky makes it impossible for a ship to meet every condition. Thus a pearl-gray ship against a hazy bright sky would be practically invisible, but with a dark cloud behind her she would stand out a clear white silhouette. Likewise a dark gray hull against a black storm cloud is practically invisible, but against the skyline of a normal day her presence would be advertised for twenty miles. Youthfully, and erroneously, I thought a working compromise could be reached. The initial mistake was to imagine that a vessel could be made invisible or nearly so under most conditions.

Wilkinson's ship camouflage proposal (approximate)

Instead, the American Navy adopted an approach to ship camouflage that had earlier been proposed by a British artist, Lieutenant Commander Norman Wikinson, called “dazzle-painting,” as portrayed (if not exactly) in Rogers’ second and third illustrations. The second is the profile of the starboard side of a Wilkinson dazzle-style design; while the third is a very rough rendering of the camouflaged ship’s appearance through a U-boat periscope. Wilkinson saw how futile it was, Rogers notes, to stress low visibility, 

and concerned himself with perfecting a camouflage that, while making no claim to rendering a ship invisible, did however so break up its familiar shape that a distant observer, especially at the eye-piece of a submarine’s periscope, could not accurately estimate its course or speed. 

He goes on to say quite a bit more about the development of ship camouflage, especially during WWI, when the dazzle system was first adapted—

Naval camouflage was not new in 1914…In 1917 when the German submarine menace made it imperative to find more efficient protection to British shipping, both naval and mercantile, Norman Wilkinson, the famous marine painter, with temporary quarter-deck rank in the RNVR, put forward a set of designs for ship camouflage that was later adopted by all the Allied navies. I have already indicated the nature of this plan. The scheme was something entirely new and became known to the public as camouflage and to the Admiralty as dazzle painting. The inventor’s sole claim was to distort the shape of a vessel sufficiently to confuse the enemy as to her course, though it also disguised her type and size to a great extent. A submarine commander, peering through the watery lens of a periscope, found it almost impossible to judge the victim’s course accurately enough to justify his risking a costly torpedo on her. The illustration is handicapped by the limitations of black and white, but may convey an idea of how this deception was achieved. It will be noticed that the violently contrasting patterns and colors immediately break up the lines of the vessel, making it difficult, even in a drawing, to decide exactly the ship’s orientation. The laws of perspective are set at naught. As soon as the virtues of the artist’s scheme were thoroughly grasped by some of its more conservative objectors in the Admiralty an emergency act was passed making it obligatory for all British ships to be so painted.

Rogers' drawing of periscope view

There was nothing haphazard about the plan or the method of carrying out the dazzle-painting. For purposes of camouflage, merchant ships were divided into thirty-seven different types, and a model of each type was studied through a periscope set up in a prepared workshop. Each model was set up on a turntable and revolved again painted sky backgrounds, while the artist studied them to decide on the maximum design for distortion. The Admiralty, from lukewarm indifference, came to regard dazzle-painting sufficiently important to send representatives to all the principal ports to instruct the American, French, Belgian, Italian and Japanese admiralities on this new art of dazzle-painting, to so disguise 4,000 merchant steamers and nearly 400 warships and spend over two and a half million pounds carrying it out.

A dazzle-painted ship looked like nothing on sea or land. The distortion, a better word than disguise, was almost perfect. To a new arrival from another world the sight of a dazzle-painted ship would give him reason to think terrestrial folk were crazy. For the essence of dazzle-painting is to follow no logical lines of pattern. Dazzle-painting, while being profoundly logical, owed its value to its apparently senseless chaos of lines. The art is to conceal the art. The adage might have been written especially for dazzle-painting.

title page of Rogers' book (1936)

Stanley R.H. Rogers was born in Nottingham, England, but his family moved to Olympia WA, when he was still an infant. He returned to England in advance of WWI, and studied art in London at Goldsmith’s College. At school he met his future wife, also an illustrator, named Franke (née Woodhouse) Rogers, who illustrated about 50 children’s books in her lifetime. The couple resided in England from 1920-1945, and during WWII, Stanley Rogers served as a Royal Navy camoufleur, as a civilian. After the war, the couple lived in the vicinity of New York, where Rogers died in 1916.

Also see this earlier post, in which Norman Wilkinson's granddaughter, British architect Camilla Wilkinson, is interviewed about ship camouflage.