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.
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Gravestone of Mittie Taylor Brush
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