seasonal animal tracks / fox and vixen flirt and play

Above Book jacket for Judith Krantz, Dazzle. NY: Crown, 1990.

•••

Sy Montgomery, Seasons of the Wild: A Year of Nature's Magic and Mysteries. Buffalo NY: Firefly Books, 1995, p. 74—

In January and February’s snows, fox tracks tell stories more vivid than any other North American mammal’s. To the novice tracker, following a coyote is as daunting as reading a Proustian tome. But this time of year, fox tracks are the Judith Krantz novels of animal tracking: in them you’ll find fast-paced, easy-to-read love stories. In these winter months, fox and vixen flirt and play, cementing and renewing pair-bonds that usually last as long as both survive.

RELATED LINKS 

Dazzle Camouflage: What is it and how did it work? /  Nature, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage /  Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage /  Optical science meets visual art /  Disruption versus dazzle / Chicanery and conspicuousness /  Under the big top at Sims' circus

firm evidence / when you find a killer whale in the milk

Above Anon, Killer Whale in morning coffee. Pixabay, public domain (2016).

•••

THERE IS a postwar issue of Field and Stream magazine (September 1922) which includes an article by Major Lawrence Mott (Jordan Lawrence Mott IV (1881–1931)), titled "A Morning with Killer Whales," pp. 340ff. In discussing Killer Whales (Orca), it compares their coloration to the "strange" ship camouflage in World War I, and even to the costume of a harlequin. Here's the excerpt—

In the dull light the sharp black, and the very white white of the fish markings made them seem as grotesque creatures from some unknown sphere—and they also reminded one of the strange ways that paint was applied to ships' sides—for the purposes of camouflage—during the late war. The curious part of it was that no two of the Killers were marked alike—as far as we could see—and, at times, one or more of them passed us not forty feet away! Some had long white stripes—mid-body. Others had splashes of white all along their sides. A large bull…had a white saddle just abaft his back fin… Another's head was almost entirely white, and still another was evenly marked in black and white—much as the costume of a Pierrot.

•••

Henry David Thoreau, Journal (1850)—

Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.

RELATED LINKS 

Dazzle Camouflage: What is it and how did it work? /  Nature, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage /  Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage /  Optical science meets visual art /  Disruption versus dazzle / Chicanery and conspicuousness /  Under the big top at Sims' circus

Picasso, camouflage, and the moth known as Picasso

Above This is, believe it or not, an insect called the Picasso Moth, known scientifically as Baorisa hieroglyphica. It was discovered by the British entomologist Frederic Moore in 1882, when artist Pablo Picasso was one year old. Surely, it was given his name (probably after World War I) because people came to believe (thanks to Gertrude Stein in part) that he had invented wartime camouflage. Not so, but the error continues. That assumption was emboldened by rumors (as in quotes below) during WWII that Picasso had somehow served as a camouflage advisor for the French government—I do not believe that's true.

That there are resemblances between certain aspects of Cubism and WWI camouflage is undeniable. And yes, Picasso (and untold others) saw those resemblances. But he did not originate the practice during WWI. See my earlier online essay on this.

•••

Anon, from Le Devoir (Montreal), May 30, 1940—

The godfather of camouflage
Camouflage, which has truly become an official weapon of war since there are now regular sections to which specialists are attached, is a French invention of the other war. It began with the substitution of conspicuous uniforms, from red, to blue and gold, to horizon blue, to the colors of the earth and the sky, then to khaki, less messy, and especially less lamentable as it becomes increasingly worn.

What few people know is that the official godfather of camouflage is none other than the inventor of cubism, Pablo Picasso. An official asked that artist, with tongue in cheek, for his advice on how to make men invisible to the enemy. Picasso, in all seriousness, replied, "Dress them as harlequins..!" It was a joke which others took seriously and was soon adopted, for it is indeed in harlequin patterns, in effect, that the factories, the cannons, the vehicles, and even the ships, are now disguised.

•••

Anthony Marino, in “He’d Like to Hear What Artists Think,” a letter to the editor in The Pittsburgh Press, November 26, 1944—

I was not surprised when [Pablo] Picasso was placed at the head of the camouflage department in France; nor when [Homer] St. Gaudens was placed at the head of the same department in this country. Both were given the job of making “something” look like “nothing.” Both had already demonstrated their aptitude at the much more difficult task of making “nothing” look like “something!”

RELATED LINKS 

Dazzle Camouflage: What is it and how did it work? /  Nature, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage /  Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage /  Optical science meets visual art /  Disruption versus dazzle / Chicanery and conspicuousness / 

FALSE COLORS: Art, Design and Modern Camouflage

CAMOUPEDIA: A Compendium of Research

on Art, Architecture and Camouflage

SHIP SHAPE: A Dazzle Camouflage Source

was ship camouflage determined by artistic trends?

dazzle camouflage

Steen Eiler Rasmussen, Experiencing Architecture. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1964, p. 93—

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.

harlequin-patterned WWI dazzle ship camouflage

Above Photograph of a dazzle-camouflaged British troop ship, the RMS Mauretania, arriving in New York harbor, carrying infantry from Europe (December 1919). If compared with the 1914 theatrical photograph below, it is evident why the public commonly compared such checkerboard-patterned camouflage to a traditional harlequin’s costume. 

Olivette's mysteries | To be clasped to Flanders mud

The Mysterious Olivette (1918)

Above A photograph (with digital coloring) of The Mysterious Olivette, shown “dancing the Diablo Tarantella in the third act of The Lilac Domino at the Empire Theatre in Liverpool UK. Published in The Bystander on March 20, 1918, p. 609, the headline caption simply read Of Course it’s Camouflage!

And below is an excerpt from a column in the same issue, p. 594—

And what [for soldiers on leave if] there were no camouflage dances? For a camouflage dance, you know, is just exactly like other dances, only, for camouflage, there’s a gramophone instead of a band, and sandwiches instead of quail, and you wear, if possible, a “simple” frock, for you never quite know if someone almost straight from the trenches won’t arrive, and to be clasped close to Flanders mud in white tulle or rose-pink ninon is—well, in any case, rather nice, really.

•••

And alas, one of our favorite old-timey comedy lines (an exchange between dancers)—

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m a little stiff from badminton.”

“I don’t care where you’re from. You’ll never dance with me again!”

Camouflage used as film theatre entrance advertising

Theatre entrance for The Geezer of Berlin (1918), NYC

In a wartime issue of Motography (November 10, 1917, p. 975), a brief article appeared in which it was asserted by a Hollywood advertising executive that “There is absolutely no excuse…for making motion picture posters deceptive.” In the article, titled Camouflage Has No Place in Poster Making, the executive goes on to say that ”Camouflage has its uses but it does not lend itself to the theatre lobby.”

Almost a year later, this was contradicted by a full-page article in Motion Picture News (October 5, 1918, p. 2189) titled Lobby Display Gets Laughs and Pulls in Crowds to See “The Geezer of Berlin.” It describes a successful advertising ploy devised M. Kashin, theatre manager of The Broadway Theatre in New York.

In an effort to increase attendance at the showing of a propaganda film (the “geezer” in the title, of course, is Kaiser Wilhelm II), Kashin transformed the theatre entrance, as well as the inside lobby, by installing "dazzle camouflage" designs, cartoons, and humorous posters.

The “vivid colors” of the “real camouflage” on the facade, the article states, “are enough to stop anyone in their tracks,” and in turn to lead the audience to a cut-out of “Der Geezer,” as well as satirical posters about “The Clown Prince,” “Gott of Germany,” “Hindebug,” and “Turpentine.”

Reproduced above is a photograph of Kashin’s design for the entrance. In an article published elsewhere (titled Inexpensive Lobby Displays), Kashin discussed his methods for devising this and other advertising novelties. He wrote: “I have found that the lobby display, worked out to its finest detail, will bring more results than any other form of advertising…”

Eyewitness | WWI dazzle ships not what they seem

Kate Burr, CAMOUFLAGED SHIPS: WHAT THEY SEEM THEY ARE NOT, in Buffalo Times (Buffalo NY) September 4, 1918—

I have seen some of the camouflaged ships which the Government has had painted for war reasons. They were a mile from where I was looking at them, but the glasses were good and brought them near. The three I saw were each one different from the others and gave a different effect to the observer.

For instance, the first of the boats looked like three fastened together and built in some strange elemental fashion with the bow higher than the keel and the middle bulging far over the sides.

It was not any of it so—all the work of the consummate artist in perspective who did the painting.

A little way off the casual onlooker was unable to tell whether the boat was “coming or going.”

The second ship presented the appearance of a battleship bristling and threatening.

The third ship sailed majestically out of the river and so much painted drapery was shown along her sides that I was minded of Tennyson’s Elaine on her flower-decked bier sailing home for her burial place.

The camouflage was complete.

Nobody could tell what was vulnerable, nor what was important, nor where the guns were placed—for though this is a vessel for common carrying, she must be armed we know.

The white body was strangely decorated with blue painting and gray painted, and what was shadow and what was blue water, and what was construction no human eye could determine by its naked strength nor with the help of strong lenses.

It was all wonderful—this camouflage of vessels—this blending of atmosphere and sea and sky.

Turning away in admiration, my eyes sweeping the shore line, discovered an object which lent a little ray of humor in this grim paraphernalia of war.

At one of the private docks belonging to the cottage community was tied a sort of craft which brought us to smiles.

It was a small floating structure about the size and shape of a bathtub, painted in “battleship gray.”

At first sight that was all—but—and then the smiles grew deep—along the sides were wide markings of blue and gray—stripes and festoons and circles and oblongs.

Some imitative lad of seven or ten had persuaded his Daddy to furnish the paint and ingenuity had accomplished the rest.

No warring enemy submarine will seek out this protected craft, which is surely a merchantman—carrying supplies from the mainland to a fairy island where busy and saddened people congregate to forget war for a few brief days before getting into the thick of work for their boys and their government again.…

Sims' Circus | Checkerboards Meet Harlequins

Cover illustration by Gayle Porter Hoskins (1919)

Above Cover, The Ladies Home Journal (March 1919), with a stunning illustration by American artist Gayle Porter Hoskins (1887-1962). It depicts the dazzle-painted RMS Mauretania arriving in New York with the first returning American troops on December 1, 1918. It is evident why this checkerboard style of camouflage (mostly employed by the British) was compared to a harlequin's outfit. Public domain image.

•••

Herman Whitaker, SIMS' CIRCUS: A Cruise with Our Destroyers Over There in The Independent (June 1, 1918), pp. 358-359—

From the train window approaching the base I obtained my first view of "Sims' circus" [in reference to its commander, US Admiral William Sims], as the flotilla had been named by the irreverent ensign…

…A convoy was ready to sail, a dozen or so of our destroyers were to be seen nestling like speckled chickens under the wings of the mother repair ships.

I said "speckled." It is, however, too weak a term for the "dazzle" paint with which they were bedaubed. No wonder the irreverent ensign dubbed them "brick-yards."

Barred, striped, blotched, smudged, ring straked with vivid pinks, arsenic greens, blowsy reds, violent blues, they looked like—like nothing in the world unless it be that most poisonous of drinks, a 'Frisco pousse cafe. All of the giraffes, zebras, leopards and tigers ever assembled in the "World's Greatest Aggregation" exhibit conventional patterns in comparison with this destroyer camouflage. The exception to this blazing color scheme, a recent arrival from home, looked in her dull lead paint like a Puritan maiden that had fallen by accident into a blowsy company of painted Jezebels.

The object of this wanton display is, of course, to fool Fritz of the submarines. That is might do so by hurting his eyes or the shock of his artistic sensibilities none would deny; but I found it hard to believe that these rainbow colors make a difference in visibility. Yet they do. Whereas, at sea the following day, the "Puritan maiden" showed a clear black outline at four miles with every spar clearly defined, the "Jezebels" presented at the same distance a blurred, wavering mass of color. It was difficult to tell bow from stern or judge their direction. They presented about as fair a target as a darting hummingbird.

Hypothetical dazzle schemes © Roy R. Behrens 2018

Devising Dazzle Camouflage | Series 2018C

Hypothetical Dazzle Camouflage © Roy R. Behrens (2018)

Above Hypothetical dazzle ship camouflage schemes devised by Roy R. Behrens by isolating details from pre-existing photographs. These are not actual examples of historic ship camouflage, but suggest that there may be alternative, more expedient ways to devise confusion patterns.

••• 

Unsigned, HEROES OF THE TRANSPORT SERVICE. Glorious Story of American Sailors May Never Be Told. Dakota County Herald (Dakota City NE) April 18, 1918, p. 7—

Then all at once a whisper ran through tho ship…The destroyers were coming. Somewhere out of that gray, cruel sea the American war boats were sweeping down on the convoy. Our destroyers, our men, they were coming to see their brethren safe through the war zone.

I shall never forget the way they came. It was a gray afternoon, when the maintop reported the flicker of a blinker signaling far out over the waves. We didn't see them [the camouflaged ships] when they came. They seemed to materialize suddenly out of nothing.

All at once, we saw the first one. She was only a few hundred yards off our bows, and we had to watch her closely to see her at all. That sounds foolish; but It Is literal fact. She was camouflaged—streaked and dotted and splashed in a dozen colors, and she melted away Into the background of the sea as though she weren't made of steel, but of mist.

Then we realized that they were all around us. Eight of them. All dappled and harlequin-patterned, all practically invisible at half a mile.