Picasso, Gestalt, Dazzle Camouflage / Missing Links

Above World War I photograph of German dazzle-painted railway car. Unidentified. Restored, color may not be historically accurate.

•••

Pablo Picasso has been credited with nearly everything, thanks in part to the efforts of his greatest publicist, Gertrude Stein. In her promotional efforts, he was second only to herself. She popularized the resemblance between Cubism and World War I camouflage, which others then embellished, among them French poet André Salmon. Below is a bit from an essay that Salmon wrote in 1929, in which he asserted that Picasso was an "influence" on the dazzle camouflage on ships, as well as disruptive patterning on field service uniforms.

•••

André Salmon, “Letter from Paris” in Apollo: A Journal of the Arts. November 1929. Vol 10 No 59, p. 281—

The torpedo boat? It was Picasso who influenced the torpedo boat. To him is due the naval camouflage used during the war, and I remember a letter that my friend Picasso wrote to me at the front after a massacre of “red trousers,” in which he expressed the desire of seeing us all dressed like harlequins if there were any chance of finding us alive after the victory. It was not his fault that khaki won the day.…

•••

Fritz Heider, a prominent German-American psychologist, wrote about the possible link between Picasso's Cubist paintings and the vision research of Max Wertheimer, a co-founder of Gestalt psychology. Picasso and Wertheimer were contemporaries, born one year apart, and there are lookalike factors in their perception-based experiments. But it does not mean that Picasso invented Gestalt theory or that Wertheimer was a Cubist. I wrote an article on this many years ago (online here) and discussed it in a video talk about Art, Design and Gestalt Theory, also free to watch online.

online here

Stevens and Merilaita book about Animal Camouflage

Publisher's synopsis (cover animation above) for Martin Stevens and Sami Merilaita, eds., Animal Camouflage: Mechanisms and Function. UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011—

In the last decade, research on the previously dormant field of camouflage has advanced rapidly, with numerous studies challenging traditional concepts, investigating previously untested theories and incorporating a greater appreciation of the visual and cognitive systems of the observer. Using studies of both real animals and artificial systems, this book synthesizes the current state of play in camouflage research and understanding. It introduces the different types of camouflage and how they work, including background matching [figure-ground blending], disruptive coloration [dazzle] and obliterative shading [countershading]. It also demonstrates the methodologies used to study them and discusses how camouflage relates to other subjects, particularly with regard to what it can tell us about visual perception. The mixture of primary research and reviews shows students and researchers where the field currently stands and where exciting and important problems remain to be solved, illustrating how the study of camouflage is likely to progress in the future.

•••

FALSE COLORS: Art, Design and Modern Camouflage

CAMOUPEDIA: A Compendium of Research in Art, Architecture and Camouflage

SHIP SHAPE: A Dazzle Camouflage Sourcebook

Lowest price / three book bundle with free shipping 

WWI mishap / making a cast of the carcass of a horse

WWI magazine illustration

The American artist Charles Burchfield (1893-1967) served briefly as a US Army camoufleur near the end of World War I. In his journals, he recalled a wartime incident that involved an attempt to build a hollowed-out papier maché replica of a dead horse (in which to conceal an observer).

Charles Burchfield, Charles Burchfield's Journals: The Poetry of Place. Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 1993—

It was Capt [William] Yarrow's (the camouflage commander) idea to model a dead horse, which being hollow would be used for a periscope outlet over a dugout, an ingenious idea. Pearson was given the job, as he was a budding sculptor. He thought it would be simpler and more realistic to make a cast from a dead horse itself. Dead horses were not easily procured, and so after a two weeks wait, they had to content themselves with a dead mule secured from a nearby farm. The mule was already two days on the way toward disintegration; nevertheless, Pearson and his helpers, who had requisitioned a truck for the errand, sat on the mule as they went thru the camp, and sang ribald songs, at the tops of their voices, much to the amazement of lookers on.

Pearson's work proceeded slowly, and the odor of the mule grew more frightful with each passing hour (Eskridge & I were sure that Pearson brought it to the barracks with him, and treated him accordingly)—One afternoon, Pearson said—he and his helper Peck, were busily working, when all at once, as one will often do, he realized that for some time someone had been calling him, but it had not completely penetrated his consciousness. Turning he beheld this major (his name eludes me, but he was some rich man's spoiled brat) at some distance, on his horse, gesticulating wildly with one hand, and holding his nose with the other—Pearson hurried over and saluted—

"What the [hell] have you got over there" the major roared—

"A dead mule, sir" was Pearson's reply, with as much sang froid as he could muster—

"A dead mule—You know it's against the regulations to allow a dead animal to lie in the camp—Who gave you permission to bring it here?"

"Capt Yarrow sir?"

"Where the hell is he?"

"I presume over in the woods there, sir" (some of the camouflage work took place in a pine grove near at hand)—

"Well, I'll show him whether he can bring dead mules into the camp," and putting spurs to his horse, he rode furiously off, only, a few minutes later, to plunge thru the artificial [camouflaged] hill, which had been so skillfully constructed that few would know it was not real, unless they had been told. It threw him from his horse, and by the time, with the aid of whatever soldiers were around, he had extricated himself, he was speechless with rage.

•••

FALSE COLORS: Art, Design and Modern Camouflage

CAMOUPEDIA: A Compendium of Research in Art, Architecture and Camouflage

SHIP SHAPE: A Dazzle Camouflage Sourcebook

Lowest price / three book bundle with free shipping