The art of camo

Copperhead Snake on Dead Leaves, study for book “Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom,” ca. 1910-1915, Abbott Handerson Thayer. Watercolor on cardboard mounted on wood panel, sight 9 1/2 x 15/1/2 in. (24.1 x 39.3 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum. Gift of the heirs of Abbott Handerson Thayer. 1950.2.15.

In a recent post MadSilence profiled the Iraqi artists who formed Jamaat al-Jidaar, “the Wall Group”, to paint concrete blast walls. It’s interesting to note that camouflage was associated from its beginnings with art and artists. 

Camouflage, the concealing of things, especially troops and military equipment, by disguising them to look like their surroundings, has become an important aspect of modern warfare.

The first section de camouflage in military history was established in 1915 by the French, under the command of an artist, and thereafter comparable units were used by the British and Americans, and, to lesser extent, by the Germans, Italians, and Russians. These units were largely made up of camoufleurs who in civilian life had been artists of one kind or another, including fine artists, designers, and architects. As a result, literally hundreds of artists served during both World Wars, by participants on all sides of the conflicts, as military or civil defense camouflage experts, including such familiar names as Abbott H. Thayer, Jean-Louis Forain, Jacques Villon, Andre Dunoyer de Segonzac, Franz Marc, Oskar Schlemmer, Edward Wadsworth, William Stanley Hayter, Arshile Gorky, Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and Ellsworth Kelly.

Artists were put into service in World War I to camouflage equipment and installations. Gertrude Stein famously reported the remarks of Picasso and Braque, viewing camouflaged military equipment on parade in Paris at the beginning World War I. “We did that,” Picasso said. “That is cubism.” That may have been cubism, while the dazzle ship camouflage was futurist, or vorticist, with its slashes and jags.

WWI Razzle Dazzle Camouflage 

The American artist Abbott Handerson Thayer (August 12, 1849 – May 29, 1921) is sometimes referred to as the “father of camouflage.” Thayer published a major book about protective coloration in nature, titled “Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom: An Exposition of the Laws of Disguise Through Color and Pattern; Being a Summary of Abbott H. Thayer’s Disclosures”. First published by Macmillan in 1909, then reissued in 1918, it had a widespread impact on the use of military camouflage during World War I.

Thayer first became involved in military camouflage in 1898, during the Spanish-American War, when he and his friend Brush proposed the use of protective coloration on American ships, using countershading, by which forms appear less round and less solid through inverted shading, as exampled by the white undersides of animals. Thayer and his partner Gerome Brush’s proposal to use countershading in ship camouflage was approved for use on American ships, and a handful of Thayer enthusiasts  recruited hundreds of artists to join the American Camouflage Corps.

Thayer was also interested in disruptive or high difference camouflage, which was not unlike what British ship camouflage designer Norman Wilkinson would call dazzle camouflage (a term that may have been inspired by Thayer’s writings, since he had earlier referred to disruptive patterns in nature as “razzle dazzle.”). 

Everett Warner (July 16, 1877 – October 20, 1963) was an American Impressionist painter and printmaker, who was also a leading contributor to US Navy camouflage during both World Wars. Warner presented his own ship camouflage plan to the US government. Warner argued that it is “impossible to make a ship invisible from a submarine, because she was almost invariably outlined against the sky and consequently would show up in silhouette.” His system broke up the silhouette in such as way as to make it very difficult for the enemy to obtain the range.

Sherry Edmundson Fry (September 29, 1879 – 1966) was an American sculptor, who also played a prominent role in U.S. Army camouflage during World War I. In 1917 Fry joined the U.S. Army’s American Camouflage Corps (known officially as Company A of the 40th Engineers).  A month later, Fry was sent to the front lines, where his primary responsibility was the camouflage of artillery positions.

~TAB

Related Links:

The Art of Camo from the AIGA website (AIGA, the professional association for design)
Abbott Handerson Thayer (August 12, 1849 – May 29, 1921) American artist, naturalist and teacher
Art and Camouflage: An Annotated Bibliography
Everett Warner (July 16, 1877 – October 20, 1963) was an American Impressionist painter and printmaker, who, perhaps more importantly, was also a leading contributor to US Navy camouflage during both World Wars.
Sherry Edmundson Fry (September 29, 1879 – 1966) was an American sculptor, who also played a prominent role in U.S. Army camouflage during World War I

Hidden talents: The Camouflage Paintings of Abbot Handerson Thayer, by Emily Gephart, Cabinet Magazine, Issue 4 Fall 2001
A Chronology of Camouflage: A Pastiche in a Bouillabaisse