DazzleThayer

Above Thayer's cut-out silhouette approach applied hypothetically to ships. Right Hypothetical dazzle scheme made by superimposing an embedded figure diagram.

Thayer referred to natural examples of this method as background picturing, by which he meant that the coloration patterns of animals, while not literal imitations (or pictures), are nonetheless epitomized emblems (an abstracted average pattern) of their customary surroundings. In the words of art historian Ross Anderson, the patterns on animals' surfaces are "a generalization or distillation of the features of those physical settings in which the animal commonly was found, a surface that would be absorbed into a greater variety of specific backdrops."

In studies of human vision, Gestalt psychologists and others have investigated embedded figures or "puzzle pictures" (Wolfgang Köhler called them “camouflaged figures”) in which a simple shape has been adroitly hidden within a larger, more complex surrounding.

In pre-computer days, one could make arbitrary compositions in art by overlapping "systems" on layers of tracing paper, viewed on a light table. Today, it is ever so easy to do the same thing (and much more) by using the "layers" function in software such as Adobe Photoshop. This could have been useful as a way to generate dazzle designs, had all that been available in World War I.

ONE METHOD camoufleurs might have used (but did not, apparently) to generate a large number of unique dazzle schemes is shown below.

It is indebted to American artist Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849-1921), sometimes called “the father of camouflage,” who (circa 1909) devised a clever, easy way for individuals to design their own camouflage, using cut-out silhouettes.

Whatever the surrounding, said Thayer, a person "has only to cut out a stencil of the soldier, ship, cannon or whatever figure he wishes to conceal, and look through this stencil from the viewpoint under consideration, to learn just what costume from that viewpoint would most tend to conceal this figure." However, the purpose of dazzle camouflage was confusion, not concealment, so, in the examples below, we have used the silhouette as a mask with which to "find" valuable dazzle designs in an abstract, geometric plan.

Above Thayer's own demonstration (c1918) of his hypothesis that indigenous warriors, like animals, use "war paint" in a functional way that enables their survival. To him, this was further proof of the rightness of his theory of background picturing.

Above is one example of Thayer's own use of his cut-out silhouette method. In an illustration from his book, titled Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom (1909/1918), he included a die-cut overlay (center panel) in which the silhouette of a copperhead snake conveniently serves as a finder in locating the snake in the painting. (Of additional interest is the fact that this snake painting was in part completed by Thayer's student, Rockwell Kent. This is the earliest example of a published illustration by Kent, who also later provided a cover painting of a dazzle camouflaged ship for the December 1918 issue of Everybody's Magazine.

Above In the months that followed World War I, the news media and advertisers were quick to take advantage of the popularity of dazzle camouflage. The side by side illustrations above are two stages in a three or four-part weekly magazine ad for Firth’s Stainless Steel in London. The initial stages of the ad are repetitions of the Cubist-like puzzle on the left, and then, in the fourth and final week, the answer to the puzzle is shown in the panel on the right.

Right Circa 1961, there was a family board game called Camouflage (produced by Milton Bradley), based on an American TV game show with the same title. Players had to identify drawings of familiar objects (in this case, a clover), when embedded in a complex maze of nonsensical shapes (using acetate overlays). So where is Waldo?

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