Caligari, distorted film sets and WWI ship camouflage

Above USS Nantahala in dazzle camouflage scheme (1918).

•••

Herman George Scheffauer, “The Vivifying of Space” in The New Vision in German Arts. London: Ernest Benn, 1924—

[his description of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari] Trees are resolved into conventionalized, constructed forms; foliage becomes a mass of light, dark and shaded crescents, rounds and silhouettes—brilliantly colored in the original scene. Floors and pavements are streaked, splashed and spotted, divided and decorated in bars, crosses, diagonals, serpentines and arrows. The walls become as banners or as transparencies, space fissued by age, or as slates upon which the lightning blazes strange hieroglyphs; or they become veils and vanish in a mosaic of scrambled forms and surfaces, like a liner in camouflage.

Gaunt chimneys rear and slant like masts in this city storm. Cunning lines of composition and the adroit use of diagonals drive the perspective into an invisible “vanishing point.”

For more on the Caligari film sets, forced perspective, and other early avant-garde cinema, see Part Three of my recently posted video trilogy on the Ames Demonstrations here.

Part 03 has been posted / Ames and Anamorphosis

Unbelievable! At last I have completed it. Earlier this afternoon, I finished and posted on YouTube at <https://youtu.be/mxOEx2JLQBA> the third and final segment of a documentary trilogy on the life and work of Adelbert Ames II (known as Del Ames) (1880-1955), an American artist, lawyer, optical physiologist, and psychologist, best-known for having devised the Ames Demonstrations in Perception.

This part primarily focuses on Ames' influence on others, among them scientists, filmmakers, and artists, especially by his targeted use of anamorphosis (aka "forced perspective") in his well-known laboratory set-ups. It reveals the little-known links between Ames' experiments, Vorticism, and avant-garde filmmaking (Ballet Mécanique), as well as in popular culture, such as cinematic special effects and roadside tourist attractions.

In conclusion, it also provides a close-up look at the recent works of three contemporary visual artists, who, in one way or another, make astonishing use of perspective. They are Jan Beutener (Amsterdam), Richard Koenig (Kalamazoo MI), and Patrick Hughes (London).

All three parts of the trilogy (about 90 minutes in combined length) can be accessed online free at my YouTube channel at <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzYrUfsAvkZur5cBv6xlhSg>.  Of course, I am eager for others to see this. Do not hesitate to share it with anyone and everyone who might find it of value or interest.

Sea Serpents | Hypothetical dazzle ship camouflage

Above and below A selection of hypothetical World War I ship camouflage schemes, called "dazzle painting," none of which are derived from factual examples.

•••

HAILS CAMOUFLAGE AS VICTORY FACTOR: Merchant Marine Veteran Says It and Convoy System Beat U-Boats: Tells Its True Purpose: Not to Decrease Visibility but to Deceive Submarines as to Course Steered in The New York Sun (November 24, 1918), p. 1—

Foolish dabs and daubs and woozy waffles of paint beat the Germans and ended the war, nothing else. The authority for this statement is a merchant marine officer who fought and dodged many submarines. His opinion was given out yesterday by the information bureau of the United States Shipping Board…

[According to the officer] “The war brought no stranger spectacle than that of a convoy plowing along through the middle of the ocean streaked and bespotted indiscriminately with every color of the rainbow in a way more bizarre than the wildest dreams of a sailor’s first night ashore.

“Every American ship going across was ordered camouflaged. The Allies had similar orders. So one seldom saw a ship at sea except a neutral that was not camouflaged. After a good look at them you could see why the sea serpent had the best season last summer he has had since Baron Munchausen died.

“Most people seem to think the purpose of marine camouflage was the same as that of the land camouflage the army used for its guns. That idea is quite mistaken. The purpose of marine camouflage was not to decrease the ship’s visibility at sea—indeed the bright whites often used in camouflage sometimes made a ship much more prominent than a neutral gray would.


“The effect of good camouflage was remarkable. I have often looked at a fellow ship in the convoy sailing on our quarter on exactly the same course we were, but on account of her camouflage, she appeared to be making right for us on a course at least 45 degrees different from the one she was actually steering.

“The deception was remarkable even under such conditions as these, and of course a U-boat with its hasty limited observation was much more likely to be fooled.

“Each nation seemed to have a characteristic type of camouflage, and after a little practice you could usually spot a ship’s nationality by her style of camouflage long before you could make out her ensign.”

 

Stinemetz Knew Stieglitz | WWI Ship Camouflage

Alfred Stieglitz, Hands of Helen Freeman (c1920)

Everyland, an American monthly periodical published by Christian missionaries, was self-described as "a magazine of world friendship for boys and girls." Among its various activities, it sponsored drawing contests. In its June 1920 issue (Vol 11 No 6), it included the following paragraph—

Morgan Stinemetz…is our Art Editor. During the war, he was in the camouflage service of the navy. It is he who will judge the results of the drawing contests, so look out for him!

So who was Morgan Stinemetz? In addition to that page in Everyland, I've found two other sources. One is a multi-page article by Louise Davis, titled ARTIST'S RETREAT: Morgan Stinemetz, who dropped an illustrator's career to become Methodist Publishing House art editor, is a man who finds joy in country life. Published in The Nashville Tennessean Magazine on September 7, 1952 (pp. 6-7, 18-19), it was illustrated by eight photographs of the artist and his artwork, interwoven with interview excerpts. I also found a newspaper obituary that was featured in the Nashville Tennessean on August 20, 1969 (p. 23). He had died at a nursing home in Nashville two days earlier.

Stinemetz was born in Washington DC in 1886. His grandfather, Major Thomas P. Morgan, was one of the first DC police commissioners. His father-in-law was an important DC publisher. As a child, Stinemetz had been interested in animals, as well as in painting and drawing. He studied at the Corcoran School of Art in DC, the National Academy of Design in New York, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia with Thomas P. Anshutz, a student and later a colleague of Thomas Eakins.

From Philadelphia, Stinemetz returned to New York, where (these are Louise Davis' words) "cubism and other various other 'isms' that startled the new century were taking a firm hold. He experimented with all of them and had his paintings in numerous shows, including the first International Art Show at the Armory in New York in 1913, when Matisse and Picasso were first shown in this country."

He became interested in the literary excursions of Gertrude Stein, and developed a friendship with Alfred Stieglitz, photographer, gallery owner, and the publisher of Camera Work. In 1916, Stieglitz met the painter Georgia O'Keeffe, and soon after they became a pair. It is interesting to note that in the years just prior to this, O'Keeffe had studied with an art educator (and an advocate of the theories of Arthur Wesley Dow) named Alon Bement, who had been her greatest influence. During World War I, Bement was a major contributor to American ship camouflage.

As for Stinemetz, he soon became disillusioned with Modernism. Quoting Davis, he became "fed up with the artificiality of the whole movement." At gallery openings, when he mingled with those in attendance, "he overheard them 'interpreting' things into his work that he had never thought of. …They analyzed every brush stroke, he said, and he was sick of it. He gave up painting on the spot," and turned instead to a new career as a book and magazine illustrator. In subsequent years, he became a well-known illustrator for a variety of popular magazines, among them Collier's, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Outdoor Life, and others. He especially enjoyed animal illustrations, and eventually became well-known for his drawings and prints of Scottie dogs. Over the years, he moved from the East Coast to Cincinnati, then settled in Nashville TN as the art director for the Methodist Publishing House.

The US entered WWI in 1917, and soon after artists, designers and architects were encouraged to use their expertise in the development of wartime camouflage. Stinemetz was one of those who contributed to naval camouflage. The article by Davis states that "he served in the navy, capitalizing on the tricks of cubism to camouflage our ships so that enemy submarines would miscalculate their aim."  The obituary simply notes that "he designed camouflage for ships of the US Navy." But he may have remained a civilian, since the Navy and the US Shipping Board worked with both military and civilian artists in designing, testing and painting "dazzle" camouflage patterns on ships, both military and commercial (called merchant ships).

Until these references were found, I had never heard of Morgan Stinemetz, much less about his service as a ship camoufleur, so it may be wise to be skeptical of the claim (stated first in the Davis article, then repeated verbatim in the obituary) that "so effective were his distortions of perspective that a record of his camouflage patterns was filed in various museums." Obviously, if such documents still exist, it would surely be helpful to find them.

Postscript (added May 10, 2019): I was mistaken. I had heard of Morgan Stinemetz. A couple of years ago, I gained access to a list (dated September 26, 1918) of sixty-four artists who had studied ship camouflage in New York with William Andrew Mackay. Stinemetz's name is on that list of American Shipping Board camoufleurs from the Second District. This suggests that Stinemetz was a civilian, and most likely not in the Navy.

Staged Illusions | Scenography and Camouflage

In earlier posts, we've talked about the role of set designers, called scenographers, in the development of camouflage. Among those that spring to mind are Homer St-Gaudens, Louis Bérard, Joseph Harker, Carol Sax, Adrian Samoiloff and others. 

In a recent essay on "Setting the Stage for Deception," we also discussed the relevance of forced perspective (as used in stage and film design) to dazzle ship camouflage in World War I. 

As noted in a post about camouflage and Hollywood set designers, the inherent link between camouflage and scenography was documented in 1989 in a dissertation by Ronald Naversen at Southern Illinois University.

Just this year, a new book has been released that once again targets this topic. It's a volume of scholarly essays (see cover above), edited by Victor Emiljanow, titled War and Theatrical Innovation (Palgrave MacMillan, 2017). Of particular interest are essays by Fraser Stevens (on the use of acting techniques in training spies for espionage) and Greer Crawley (on recruiting scenographers in both World Wars as camoufleurs). Of pertinence to Stevens' essay about acting and espionage, we are reminded of The Camouflage Project at The Ohio State University in 2011. As confirmed online, Crawley's essay is in part indebted to her 300-page doctoral dissertation called "Strategic Scenography: Staging the Landscape of War" (2011).

•••

THE THEATRES. Washington. The Richmond Palladium and Sun-Telegram (Richmond IN). March 19, 1920—

When Sooner or Later, the current Owen Moore Selznick Picture comes to the Washington theatre today and tomorrow, local fans will have their first opportunity of seeing one of the latest phases of movie progress—the art of camouflage, developed to such a high extent during the war and now adapted to motion picture studio uses.

Joseph Teicher, the scenic artist at the Selznick studio is chiefly responsible for the development. Without disturbing the dramatic continuity of the production, it was necessary to take Owen Moore and his company to a wide stretch of country, with lake and hills and winding paths, the whole flooded with moonlight.

This was done with the aid of all the tools of the camouflager—paint, board, frames of steel and wire, and the scientific use of perspective. The result was so baffling that photographs of it deceived all who had not seen the studio scenes. For the movie cameras the "coup de camouflage" went over with a bang.

Forced Perspective, Stage Design and Camouflage

Above Only a few days ago, an essay that I recently wrote on forced perspective (commonly used in stage design and museum dioramas) and World War I ship camouflage has been published online at the website of Aisthesis (an Italian journal published by the Firenze University Press), where it can be read online or downloaded as a pdf.  The essay, titled "Setting the Stage for Deception: Perspective Distortion in World War I Camouflage," appears in the current, special issue on Mimicries in nature, art and society. Vol 9 No 2 (2016).

Ames Room and Chair Demonstration

Adelbert Ames II (1880-1955) was an American lawyer and artist who was known for his discoveries in optical physiology and perceptual psychology. In 1928, while at Dartmouth College in Hanover NH, he diagnosed a visual dysfunction called aniseikonia which resulted in the founding of the Dartmouth Eye Institute.

Later, in the 1940s and 50s, he developed nearly thirty experiments in perceptual psychology, now commonly referred to as the Ames Demonstrations. These ingenious laboratory setups, which are still commonly cited in psychology textbooks, were highly unusual, and they prompted extended discussions among psychologists, philosophers, educators and artists. more >>>

Michael Torlen Remembers Hoyt L. Sherman

Photographs © Richard Koenig

Above We will never cease to be amazed by the illusionistic photographs (he calls them "photographic prevarications") of American artist Richard Koenig, who teaches in the Department of Art and Art History at Kalamazoo College in Michigan.

They are more than photographs; they are puzzling photographic views of dimensional constructions that were partly made from photographs. They are settings that have much to do with experiments in perception, not in a scientific sense, but more in keeping with the work that was done by artist and optical physiologist Adelbert Ames II in the 1930s-40s. Known collectively as the Ames Demonstrations, many of these were reconstructed in the late 1940s at Ohio State University by art professor Hoyt L. Sherman (see story below in this posting).

In one of Koenig's photographs (above top), a brick pavement (including a manhole) appears to levitate in the corner of a room. But in fact, the pavement pattern is comprised of smaller, precisely distorted photographs, some of which run up the wall. Nothing is actually floating. In the photograph below that one, we see what might at first appear to be two identical stepladders, side-by-side. The one on the right is indeed a stepladder, but the second one consists of smaller, photographic tiles that are entirely flat on the floor.

•••

In the 1960s, among the graduate students who worked with Hoyt Sherman at Ohio State University was the artist Michael Torlen, who would later go on to become a Professor of Art at Purchase College, State University of New York. Now Professor Emeritus, Torlen recently published a paper about Sherman's ideas and Torlen's memories of him. The article is titled "Hit with a brick: The Teachings of Hoyt L. Sherman" in Visual Inquiry: Learning and Teaching Art. Vol 2 No 3 (2013), pp. 313-326. In the following, he recalls what happened at Sherman's first meeting with a group of graduate students at OSU in 1963 (p. 314)—

As we settled into our chairs, Sherman handed out a course outline and began his lecture. Then he turned and walked over to a table stacked with a variety of materials, include a pile of red bricks. Seemingly distracted, Sherman stopped discussing his syllabus and started searching for something beneath the brick pile. He stacked and re-shuffled the bricks, sorting and clinking them loudly against each other, until he suddenly turned and hurled a brick directly at our heads.

Certain he had aimed the brick at me, I scrambled to get out of the way, murmuring, "Is this guy crazy?" Sherman was laughing. The brick he threw was a piece of foam rubber, the same size as the other bricks, painted brick red. Sherman explained that we were unable to distinguish the foam rubber brick from the cluster of real bricks, because our past experience, our associations and our memory of bricks influenced us. Our reactions developed from the false assumption that similar things are identical.

Perspective Illusions in Camouflage

Joseph Allen Minturn (c1921), camouflage backdrops

The use of perspective distortions (such as forced perspective) in World War 1 camouflage (both army and navy) has historical precedents in art, architecture and stage design. Above are two drawings of the supposed use of huge panoramic backdrops that created the illusion of a benign, continuing landscape, while also serving as a shield for military activities taking place behind them. These drawings were made by American artist and US Army camoufleur Joseph Allen Minturn and were published in his memoir, titled The American Spirit (Globe Publishing, 1921), available free online.

Surely, these trompe l'oeil backdrops cannot have been used very often because they only work effectively if viewed from front and center.

Below is one of the few photographs of an installed backdrop, but because it was photographed off-center from the right, the illusion that the railroad tracks continue into the distance is simply not convincing.

One that is far more convincing was used for editorial purposes in a newspaper cartoon (c1919) shown below, titled CAMOUFLAGE.

In addition, a few days ago, we ran across a reference to a comparable trick in an unsigned WW1 news article headed WILL YOU TELL ME? in The World's News (Sydney AU), February 9, 1018, p. 20—

…The foremost artists of France are engaged in this magic work [of camouflage], and an American unit of camoufleurs has been organized… One of the most amazing exploits in camouflage was achieved by the French last year. A German position commanded a railway track far into the distance back of the French lines. One night there was set up across a village street that was needed a huge painting of the track, trees, poles, horizon, hills and all. The trains passed safely behind the screen. The enemy never discovered the trick.

More on Camoufleur Frederick J. Waugh

Frederick J. Waugh, SS West Mahomet (ship and model) (c1919)

Above (top) More persuasive evidence of the ingenuity of American ship camouflage artist Frederick Judd Waugh. This is his design for the camouflage of the starboard side of the SS West Mahomet, and below that is Waugh's hand-painted model. Note how improvisational the model is, making use of nails and other cast-off scraps.

•••

Anon, CAMOUFLAGE in the Wanganui Chronicle (New Zealand), February 7, 1918, p. 4—

…Visitors to Wellington—or even Castlecliff during the past few days—may have seen excellent examples of the art of camouflage, big liners looking extremely weird with extraordinary markings. These are designed to make the ships poor targets for submarine gunners, the markings deceiving the eye to such an extent that it is difficult to distinguish ship from water. Wonderful are the uses of camouflage, not in the sphere of war alone, but in all phases of life! For, after all, does not camouflage play a very large part in the daily round? We see it everywhere. We laugh at our neighbor's little deceit—which after all only deceives himself—quite oblivious of our neighbor's chuckle regarding our own little tricks. Some uses of camouflage are amusing; some pathetic. The ass which donned the lion's skin was not so stupid as the man or woman who, by means of powder, hair, or clothes, tries to make the world believe Time has treated him or her as it does the ocean. The middle-aged woman cannot become a young girl by donning the dress of a young girl; and the middle-aged man cannot become a boy by trundling a hoop in the street. They may—and often do—deceive some people for a time, but sooner or later the camouflage is penetrated and the truth stands revealed. Is the deception worthwhile? Nobody—least of all those who practice it—will say so. Then, in the commercial and social sphere, camouflage plays its part, the users fondly believing that they are deceiving the world at large regarding their position and prospects. And, be it admitted, very often their belief is well grounded! But there is always the fear that some accident may break down the camouflage, and the constant guard against that disaster keeps the user on the rack.

Frederick J. Waugh painting a ship model (c1919)

Anon, RED RAIN FALLS IN SALE: Curious Effect on Countryside, in Gippsland Times (Gippsland, Victoria AU), November 16, 1944, p. 1—

During Sunday night and the early part of Monday, dust-impregnated rain [called "red rain" or "blood rain"] fell throughout the whole district. Residents were amazed on emerging from their homes to discover that everything which came within range of vision, appeared to have changed color overnight.

…The effect was incongruous. Where the rain has missed, dry dust lay. Where the rain had fallen, splotchy marks were left. The entire effect was as though some crazy camouflage artist had executed an ultra futuristic design.

other sources

Camouflage Artist | Frederick J. Waugh

Camouflage of USS Proteus by Frederick J. Waugh (c1918)

In earlier posts, we've talked about American painter Frederick Judd Waugh (1861-1940), a World War 1 ship camoufleur who worked with Everett L. Warner. As Warner describes in the notes he used for a postwar slide talk on ship camouflage, the 57-year-old marine artist Waugh was the team's most resourceful designer. As evidence, Warner in his notes describes Waugh's solution for "dazzle-painting" the collier USS Proteus, a cargo ship for carrying coal. Above (top) is a photograph of the starboard side of the painted wooden model of the plan proposed by Waugh, while below that is a 1918 photograph of the actual painted ship, as seen from the bow and the port side. Here is what Warner recalled in his notes about the process of designing it—

The eye is so accustomed to the normal operation of the laws of perspective that if you were to see a group of telegraph poles, and they had been so graded in height that the nearest one was much the shortest, you would be likely to think that the tall one in the distance was the nearest. I remember this design well because it cost me a box of cigars. When the model came in (a collier looks like an unfinished skyscraper afloat) it looked like such a difficult problem that I offered a box of cigars if any one of the designers could fool me with a design. Mr. [Frederick] Waugh won the box of cigars, but the joke was on him as he does not smoke. [It was] An effective design, but one belonging to [the] early period before we had entered the realm of solid geometry.

•••

Cecelia Van Auken, COLLECTOR'S LONG-TIME LOVE AFFAIR WITH PAINTINGS OF FREDERICK WAUGH. Bridgeport Sunday Post (Bridgeport CT), July 19, 1970 , pp. 3 and 12—

The Waughs' idyllic life in Kent [CT] was interrupted in 1918, where they had moved four years previously, when Waugh, because of his extraordinary knowledge of the sea, was asked [by Everett Warner] to take part in the important work of marine camouflage being carried on by the Navy department. He went to Washington [DC] for the duration.

•••

Anon, HAD TO FALL BACK ON LUNCH: Seemed the Only Thing Left to Which Host Could Invite His Artistic Friends. Dakota County Herald (Dakota City NE), January 19, 1922, p.2—

Mr. Heming tells an amusing little incident to disprove the general belief that artists are temperamental, dissipated creatures who thrive on the white lights. In the ancient days before prohibition Mr. Heming was in New York to invite American artists to exhibit in the Canadian national exhibit in Toronto. Gardner Symons, the well-known American artist, invited Heming and Frederick Waugh, another leading artist, to dinner at the National Arts club. "Let's go down and have a cocktail before lunch," said Symons. "I never take anything," said Heming. "Neither do I," said Waugh. Symons laughed. "That's funny," he said. "Neither do I, but anyway we'll have some cigars." "I don't smoke," said Waugh. "And I don't smoke," said Heming. "Well, this is a great joke," said Symons. "I don't smoke either, but I thought you fellows would at least take a cigar. Say, you eat, don't you?—because I've ordered lunch."

•••

Anon, VISUAL THERAPY in Morning Herald (Hagerstown MD), March 10, 1953, p. 8—

Fine paintings on a hospital wall constitute a "visual therapy" and are helpful to the sick, New York hospital workers say…We think this very probable and are sure the routine paintings and prints on such walls up to now retard recovery…(A still-life showing a faded apple, a couple of green pears and a slice of melon once kept us laid up at least a week longer than was necessary.)…We remain a little skeptical about the masters…We want no doctor to prescribe a Picasso when we can get a good Frederick Waugh or Winslow Homer…A lot of widely heralded moderns make us sick…

•••

Anon, MAKES UNIQUE PICTURES FROM BITS OF DRIFTWOOD: Many-Sided Waugh, Known to Milwaukee Through Marine Paintings, Expresses Inspiration in Diverse Forms, in the Milwaukee Sentinel, January 15, 1922 [announcing an exhibition of Waugh's driftwood artwork at the Milwaukee Art Institute]—

…When the Boer War was on and [Frederick] Waugh was painting in London  he even temporarily gave up the game of chance as to an artist's livelihood to rehandle sketches sent back to the London Graphic by officers and artists at the front. When no sketches came in, telegraphic description was all the data he needed for his series of spirited battle pictures.

His knowledge of sea-craft and ready enthusiasm made him a most valuable assistant in the bureau of camouflage during the late war.

…From his home in Mount Clair NJ, Waugh often went down to wander along the beach of his always bel0ved sea. The usual driftwood, remnants of ruined craft, bits of tree roots and gnarled branches from only the waves know where, have always fascinated him. He often gathered them up. Their curious shapes kindled his imagination. His creative desire wound itself around their blanched, smooth surfaces and he set about to make them beautiful, to incorporate them into art.

With knives and paints, brush and ingenious vision he worked these bits of driftwood into designs, pictures if you will, charming things, delicately colored.…

Twenty-eight drawings by Waugh, derived in part from gnarled wood shapes, were used as illustrations for a children's book titled The Clan of Munes (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916). The original book illustrations were recently exhibited at the Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State University (Wichita KS) from January 25 through April 13, 2014. The same museum owns a large collection of more than 300 artworks by Waugh, donated in 1974 by Edwin A. Ulrich.

•••

See also an earlier mention of Waugh in Vladimir Nabokov's scandalous novel, Lolita (New York: Knopf, 1992). Below A portrait of Waugh (1929) in Peter A. Juley and Son Collection, Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Peter A. Juley & Son, Portrait of Frederick Judd Waugh (1929)

Trompe l'Oeil Camouflage

Richard W. Rummell (c1918)

Anon (1919)

Above (top) During World War I, American artist Richard W. Rummell (1848-1924) made this watercolor sketch of the starboard side of a single steamship, camouflaged by painting on its surface trompe l'oeil images of three other ships advancing diagonally toward the right. The caption on the painting reads: Side of steamship painted to represent Fleet of Vessels going diagonally forward to Starboard. This ploy was indeed proposed during the war, but most likely it wasn't ever carried out. Courtesy US National Archives. (bottom) Below that is another (unattributed) artist's rendering of the same idea, as published in Lloyd Seaman, "Masterpieces of Navy Camouflage" in Popular Mechanics magazine. Vol 31 (1919), pp. 217-219. The article's author's caption reads: The masterpiece of navy camouflage: Destroyers painted upon the sides of the ocean leviathans. No Hun submarine commander cared to face the redoubtable destroyers with their deadly depth bombs. Ordinarily, no time was spent in investigation—the U-boats dived and fled the spot.

•••

From "Camouflage" in American Architect. Vol 117 (1920)—

Now that the war [WWI] is over the camouflage artist may be seeking occupation, and the Architect's Journal of London has facetiously thought of a manner in which his talents might be used for the general good. We are surrounded by many buildings, which cause us daily pain, but which serve some utilitarian purpose. Why should not the camouflage artist so decorate the fronts of these buildings as to make them absolutely invisible from the street? It might excite wonder to see some hundreds of people passing into a building which apparently consisted of one floor only, but this would not matter. We should only consider that there were more marvels than had been dreamed of in our philosophy, while local authorities would have to determine what new buildings should be allowed to be visible.

Below A somewhat comparable concept: A World War II-era Russian photograph (taken by Alexander Krasavin on 9 August 1942) of the Bolshoi Theatre camouflaged by the application, on its facade, of a painting of an entirely different building. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons / RIA Novosti.

Camouflaged Bolshoi Theatre (1942)

Additional info

WW1 Ship Camouflage as Hughesual

Above Photograph by Steve Ibbitson of British artist Patrick Hughes, holding an Ames rotating trapezoid window. From John Slyce, Patrick Hughes: Perverspective (London: Momentum, 1998).

•••

In 2011, when British artist-writer Patrick Hughes published a book of his artwork, word play and related contrivances, called Paradoxymoron: Foolish Wisdom in Words and Pictures (London: Reverspective Ltd, 2011), we blogged about his paradoxes, both visual and verbal.

Still amazingly productive, now he's come out with a wonderful documentary film, produced by Jake West, a rich engaging memoir called Hughesually: The Art of Patrick Hughes.

At a certain point in the film, Hughes begins to talk about the rotating trapezoid window of American artist and optical physiologist Adelbert Ames II, and its relevance to his own perspective-related research. It was Hughes who devised an ingenious means (which he calls "reverspective") of painting perspective scenes on odd-shaped inverse surfaces, which causes the painting to visually bend as the viewer's point of view is moved.

In that previous post, I  talked about the link between Hughes' paintings, Ames' illusory window, and the adoption in World War I of a variety of ship camouflage called dazzle painting.

Last August, at an international conference at the Sydney College of the Arts, titled Camouflage Cultures: Surveillance, Communities, Aesthetics and Animals, I suggested an analogical link between the participant-observer's view of the various Ames demonstrations [see news pictorial below] (looking through a monocular peephole from a fixed point of view) and the periscopic point of view of a German U-boat commander (as shown in the slide illustration below).

News feature in Herald-Journal, Logan UT, July 4, 1954

Everett L. Warner Aerial View of NYC

Everett L. Warner, New York From a Sea Plane (c1919)

Above Everett Longley Warner, New York From a Sea Plane (c1919). Pastel on paper, 14 x 11 inches. As of this posting, this artwork is available for purchase at MME Fine Art in New York.

•••

About the Warner pastel sketch above, we were surprised and delighted to find it online. We'd seen it reproduced before, but had never seen it framed. When I showed the frame to William Adair at Gold Leaf Studios in Washington DC, he replied that it is typical of a Boston-area "Murphy-style frame," so-named because of the work of American artist and frame designer Hermann Dudley Murphy (1867-1945). As a painter, Murphy was primarily known for his portraits and landscapes, but he also did some wonderful floral still lifes. His papers are in the Archives of American Art.

When I saw Murphy's name, I realized I had heard it before, and that he was somehow connected to wartime camouflage. Indeed, that seems to be the case. In an online biographical note at the National Academy Museum website, it states that "during World War I he worked as inspector of camouflage for the US Shipping Board." During the war, ships in the Boston Navy Yard were being painted with various camouflage schemes by artists and others. Artist Philip Little from Salem MA (whom we've posted on before) was prominent in that group and was surely well-acquainted with Murphy. Little (and probably Murphy as well) was in direct contact with Everett Longley Warner, who was serving in Washington DC at time, as head of the US Navy's team of artists who designed the camouflage patterns required of all merchant ships, as regulated by the US Shipping Board.

Now back to the wonderful Warner pastel on this blog page. Here's what Helen K. Fusscas wrote in an exhibition catalog titled A World Observed: The Art of Everett Longley Warner 1877-1963. Old Lyme CT: Florence Griswold Museum, 1992—

In June 1919, although the war was over and his skills in camouflage were no longer needed, Warner had still not been discharged. He conceived a scheme whereby his last few weeks in the service would be helpful to him as an artist…As a result Warner spent three or four weeks being flown daily in US Navy seaplanes over New York City and the Eastern seaboard painting small sketches in oils from the air to be enlarged later in his studio…He completed several dozen fairly complete sketches, perhaps the first paintings ever done during actual flight.

Warner was soon discharged from the service. His first thought as a civilian was to enlarge enough pictures of flight to make an exhibition.…In a burst of enthusiasm he quickly completed three large paintings from the sketches…New York From a Sea Plane [is] the only one of this series known to have survived even as a sketch…

Warner exhibited his aerial paintings frequently, but the excitement that he had hoped to stir up never materialized. He discovered that few people new or cared what the land looked like from the air. Totally discouraged by the indifference with which his excursions into this new field were received, Warner gave up the idea of painting aerial views…[He] finally painted two out and burned the other.

Camouflage and Patrick Hughes

Patrick Hughes, Vanishing Venice (2007)

For many years, I've been interested in the paintings (as well as the writings) of British artist Patrick Hughes (1939-). As early as the mid-1960s, he began to paint perspective scenes (such as the one shown above, titled Vanishing Venice), not on flat canvases, but on odd-shaped board constructions, as shown in the line drawing above. In the process, he developed a method of painting he calls “reverspective.” In these mesmerizing paintings, features that appear to recede (visually) in space are in fact physically nearer. As a result, as you walk past one of them, it appears to move in astonishing ways (much as did the rotating trapezoid window that Adelbert Ames II invented in the 1950s). You have to experience this to believe it. Fortunately, there are online film clips as well as other notes about these bewildering images.

What does this have to do with camouflage? It has everything to do with a certain variety of disruptive camouflage, called dazzle painting, which was widely used in World War I for ship camouflage. Much as in Hughes' paintings, in dazzle-painted ships, certain surfaces appeared more distant when in fact they were physically closer. The intention was to interfere with the targeting calculations of the German U-boat gunners in their efforts to torpedo ships.

Hughes' paintings are visual paradoxes, a subject that has interested him since childhood. In fact, my first introduction to him was through his writing, not his art. I recall that the first of his books that I bought was Vicious, Circles and Infinity: A Panoply of Paradoxes (co-authored with George Brecht in 1975). In subsequent years, I also found Upon the Pun: Dual Meaning (1978), and More on Oxymoron (1984). Now, he has come out with a new, more comprehensive look at the same subject (a book I highly recommend) called Paradoxymoron: Foolish Wisdom in Words and Pictures (London: Reverspective Ltd, 2011).

Modernism and Ship Camouflage

Above These three watercolor paintings (with no credit to the artist, and the signature at bottom right is unreadable) were published as the frontispiece in George A. Hoadley, Essentials of Physics. Revised edition. American Book Company, 1921. The caption is headed "A Ship Illustrating the 'Dazzle' System of Camouflage," followed by: The pictures show the same ship, headed in the same direction, but a three different distances. When seen as a great distance, especially through the periscope of a submarine, the ship appears to be headed in a direction quite different from its actual course, because of the false perspective design painted on it. In the remainder of the book, there's only one brief mention of camouflage (p. 481).

During World War I, having recently been introduced, by way of the Armory Show, to Cubism, Futurism and other forms of Modernism , the public was amazed (delighted, shocked, offended) by the use of blatantly colorful shapes for ship camouflage. Publications from that time are filled with outspoken eyewitness reports of what it was like to see a fleet of dazzle-camouflaged ships. For example, this is from American writer Arthur Stanley Riggs' With Three Armies On and Behind the Western Front. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1918, pp. 17-18—

The ship herself was not painted a uniform war gray but with a bluish-gray as a background, she was literally covered, hull, superstructure, funnels, spars, boats, everything with bilious green and red-lead squares, set diamondwise—camouflage at sea [this is probably in reference to the Cunard ocean liner, the RMS Mauretania]. When coming aboard a young airplane engine expert, with the rank of a Lieutenant-Commander of the Royal Naval Reserve, shivered at this hideous pleasantry, and all the way across missed meals and kept away from the bluest part of the smoking room.

Here's another disgruntled report from an American "war essayist," S.J. Duncan-Clark from "The Impressions of a Landlubber" in The Recruit: A Pictorial Naval Magazine. Vol. 5. Great Lakes Athletic Association, 1919—

I traveled across the Atlantic on the Adriatic, one of a fleet of twelve transports carrying 30,000 American soldiers. They were all British ships, but they had an American convoy for the greater part of the voyage. We steamed out of New York harbor with four destroyers acting as our guard, two on either side, and a cruiser leading the way.

Every merchant ship was camouflaged. Imagine a lunatic cubist painter turned loose with three brushes and a pot each of black, white and blue paint, and the results would be much like those that were visible to us on the hulls of our sister ships.

And a third report from the same time period, in British clergyman William James Dawson's The Father of a Soldier. John Lane Company, 1918, p. 11—

I have just returned from the Docks, and have seen my son off for his third trip to the trenches.

Beside the landing stage lay a ship strangely camouflaged, as if a company of cubist artists had been at work upon her. She looked like an old lady of sober habits, who had been caught in the madness of carnival, and dressed as a zany. She was adorned—or disfigured—by stripes of color that ran in all directions, splashings of green, splotches of gray, curves of dull red, all mixed in uttermost confusion and with no discernible design. I was told that this extraordinary appearance was designed to give the ship invisibility: thus clothed she would flee like a ghost over the gray perilous waters, a phantom thing of blurred outlines, as if evoked from the waters themselves.

Architectural Camouflage Unit

Since August 2009, there has been an on-going course called Camouflage: AA Intermediate Unit 6 at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. The course instructors are Jonathan Daws, Dagobert Bergmans and Fumiko Kato (see Flowspace Architecture). The unit will conclude in February 2010 with an exhibition called Camouflage: A Catalogue of Effects, views of which are posted there. The site is particularly interesting if you link to the entire contents of the course blog and browse through its earlier postings. The effects that the students came up with are fascinating, especially in relation to the anamorphic warping of two-dimensional or three-dimensional surfaces, making them appear to be the opposite of what they "really" are. The results are not dissimilar from certain examples of World War I-era dazzle ship camouflage, as well as the distorted room interiors and other shapes that were originated by American artist and optical physiologist Adelbert Ames II in the 1930s-50s.