CAMOUFLAGE ARTISTS (called camoufleurs) make it an arduous challenge to see a figure against a background (called blending or background matching), or to distinguish one category of object from another (mimicry). Less familiar but potentially far more effective is disruptive or dazzle camouflage in which a single thing appears to be a hodgepodge (or mishmash) of unrelated components. … Disruptive or dazzle camouflage and its corollary, coincident disruption (consisting of blending and dazzle combined), are found throughout the natural world. Such tactics have also been widely employed throughout human history. The specific term “dazzle painting” was coined in 1917 by its British originator, a Navy lieutenant and marine artist named Norman Wilkinson. He devised it to counter torpedo attacks by German submarines (called U-boats). It was Wilkinson’s idea to apply bewildering, geometric shapes to the surfaces of ships, both military and merchant, to make it a challenge to aim at them through a periscope from a substantial distance, in conditions of visibility that were often less than ideal. Because the targeted ship was moving and because the torpedoes took time to arrive, the submarine gunner had to calculate the speed and direction of the ship, and to aim ahead of the target. Above right SS Empress of Russia (1918) in a convoy of other dazzle-painted ships. Dazzle camouflage was known by other names as well, among them baffle painting, jazz painting, parti-coloring, razzle dazzle, zébrage, eccentric painting, and crazy quilt painting.
 
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What’s New Recent developments in the study of dazzle and other kinds of camouflage include the following: • Roy R. Behrens (author of this website and of FALSE COLORS: Art, Design and Modern Camouflage) has produced a major new volume, titled CAMOUPEDIA: A Compendium of Research on Art, Architecture and Camouflage. more • Recently rediscovered at the Fleet Library at the Rhode Island School of Design are 455 full-color lithographic plans for WWI dazzle ship camouflage. An exhibition opened on January 26, 2009, followed by a symposium titled Artists at War: A Symposium Exploring the Connections between Art and Camouflage on February 14. more • A major exhibition titled Camouflage was held in March through November, 2007, at the Imperial War Museum in London. Starting June 5, 2009, the exhibit will be held again at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. more • In October 2008, a new documentary film on the life of Abbott H. Thayer (sometimes called the “father of camouflage”) premiered at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. Titled INVISIBLE: Abbott Thayer and the Art of Camouflage, it can now be purchased online for about $20. more http://www.bobolinkbooks.com/BobolinkBookshop/Home.htmlhttp://www.risd.edu/dazzle/http://london.iwm.org.uk/upload/package/78/site/index2.htmhttp://www.civilization.ca/cwm/media/press-releases/2009/project-runway-canada-contestants-work-with-camouflage-at-the-canadianhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbott_Thayerhttp://www.prpproductions.comshapeimage_10_link_0shapeimage_10_link_1shapeimage_10_link_2shapeimage_10_link_3shapeimage_10_link_4shapeimage_10_link_5
Above Cover and sample page spreads from CAMOUPEDIA: A Compendium of Research on Art, Architecture and Camouflage by Roy R. Behrens. First edition. Dysart, Iowa: Bobolink Books, 2009. 10-ISBN 0-9713244-6-8. 13-ISBN 978-0-9713244-6-6. 6 x 9 ins. 464 pages, with 344 illus. Includes subject timeline, extensive bibiliography, and index. Click here to order online. Click here to download book info as printable pdfhttp://www.bobolinkbooks.com/BobolinkBookshop/Home.htmlDazzleCamouflage_files/CAMOUPEDIAad.pdfshapeimage_11_link_0shapeimage_11_link_1
Pictured above are three important players in World War I American ship camouflage. Harold Van Buskirk (1894-1980) (left) was an architect and legendary Olympic fencing champion, who initially served as a member of the Submarine Defense Association. Then, in 1918, as a lieutenant in the US Naval Reserve, he was placed in charge of the Camouflage Section of the Bureau of Construction and Repair. Within that unit were two subsections, called the Design Subsection (located in Washington DC) and Research Subsection (at Eastman Kodak Laboratories in Rochester NY). These subsections were in turn commanded by artist Everett L. Warner(1877-1963) (center) and physicist Loyd A. Jones (1884-1954) (right), respectively. Below in this column are photos of various stages in the process of designing WWI dazzle ship camouflage.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everett_Warnerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyd_A._Jonesshapeimage_13_link_0shapeimage_13_link_1
 
Below WWI-era British postcards of paintings of various dazzle camouflaged ships. Author’s collection. Gift of Les Coleman.
• In recent years, marine biologist Roger Hanlon (at Woods Hole MA) and others have studied the amazing ability of cuttlefish to change their appearance in response to environmental changes. They will even do their best to match a black and white checkerboard. For a vivid film account of this, see NOVA: Kings of Camouflage. morehttp://www.mbl.edu/mrc/hanlon/index.htmlhttp://www.amazon.com/NOVA-Cuttlefish-Kings-Camouflage-Nova/dp/B000PY510Kshapeimage_15_link_0shapeimage_15_link_1
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Click here for a roster of artists, architects, theatre designers, zoologists and others who contributed to camouflage in the 20th centuryCamouflageArtists.htmlshapeimage_24_link_0
Above in photos 1 through 4 are some of the typical stages in designing WWI US ship camouflage. (1) The model-making room at the Design Section in Washington DC, in which the following five artists are working (left to right): Douglas D. Ellington, Kenneth MacIntire, Frederick C. Clayter, Richards, and Sullivan. (2) The model-painting room, in which the camouflage artists include (left to right) Everett L. Warner, Frederick Waugh, John Gregory, Gordon Stevenson, M. Nash, and M. O’Connell. A sign on the wall above Warner reads “Keep It Simple.” (3) The model ships having been painted, they were then observed in a testing theatre (positioned on a turntable, they were viewed through a periscope simulator by experienced naval officers). The person shown here is US Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels. (4) Once ship plans were approved, the models were passed on to the drafting room, where the camouflage proposals were translated into construction diagrams that were then provided to dock officers for use in painting the actual ships. Warner, Van Buskirk, Waugh, Gregory and Nash are also in this photograph. Click here for an annotated list of books and other writings on camouflage in the past 100+ years. Above (left) is a photograph of Lieutenant Harold Van Buskirk (on the right) and Ensign R.J. Richardson, who was in charge of the drafting room, comparing one of the ship models with its construction diagram. At left are the original plans for the camouflage of the USS Leviathan, an American troop ship (captured from the Germans, it was formerly the Vaterland) of which other views are shown below on this page. Note that different designs were proposed for the two sides, port and starboard, and that the patterns were altered somewhat in being applied to the actual ship. “At every level, from brute camouflage to poetic vision, the linguistic capacity to conceal, misinform, leave ambiguous, hypothesize, invent, is indispensable to the equilibrium of human consciousness.” —George Steiner shipping now • Still in print and selling briskly is FALSE COLORS: Art, Design and Modern Camouflage by Roy R. Behrens (2002), increasingly considered to be a pivotal book on the subject for artists, scientists and cultural historians. Click here for camouflage related inventions on file at the US Patent Office
• A special theme issue has come out of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Vol 364 No 1516, (February 27, 2009), pp. 421-557. Titled Animal Camouflage: Current Issues and New Perspectives, this collection of fifteen articles was compiled and edited by scientists Martin Stevens (University of Cambridge) and Sami Merilaita (Stockholm University). It reports on the latest developments in the scientific study of natural camouflage. morehttp://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/zoostaff/BBE/Stevens/Martin1.htmhttp://www.zoologi.su.se/research/sami/http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/shapeimage_35_link_0shapeimage_35_link_1shapeimage_35_link_2
As discussed in detail on this website, American Impressionist painter Everett L. Warner was one of the leading contributors to US ship camouflage during both World Wars. Through the courtesy of his son, Thomas Warner, we have been able to post many of the photographs on this website, including those (at left) of four of the wooden ship models that his father and his colleagues made at the Design Section in Washington DC. (Unfortunately, other models, as well as various documents, were destroyed in 1972 in a fire at Warner’s painting studio.) In addition, several of the photographs on this page were provided by Lyn Malone, who is the granddaughter of Harold Van Buskirk. ARE YOU related to artists, architects, designers, scenographers, zoologists, or others who contributed to camouflage (military, civilian), in one way or another? Do you have historic photographs, documents or models? Please let us know.
… The refinement and expansion of this website (including additional subsections) is ongoing. Check back for the latest revisions. Still in process are subsections having to do with Everett L. Warner, Abbott H. Thayer, Harold Van Buskirk, Loyd A. Jones, William Andrew Mackay, Frederick Waugh, Norman Wilkinson and others, and such subjects as the scientific rationale for designing camouflage, camouflage schools, civilian involvement in camouflage, the use of camouflage by artists (current and historical), and so on. EverettWarner.htmlDazzleThayer.htmlshapeimage_38_link_0shapeimage_38_link_1
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this website has been revised, enlarged and updated “The most familiar kinds of camouflage make one thing appear to be two, two things one, and so on.”—RB
dazzle camouflage High Difference Camouflage (hodgepodge) compiled by Roy R. Behrens copyright © 2009 http://www.uni.edu/artdept/behrens.htmlshapeimage_47_link_0
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