Ships’ Dazzle Camouflage WWI
Dazzle Camouflage, History, WWI
The Battle of Jutland must have looked like all the admirals had recently dropped acid.
Modern art, wartime strategy and perceptual psychology converged during World War I giving rise to dazzle camouflage. The only color visual records of dazzle camouflage from the period are paint-scheme drawings made by the Admiralty and modernist marine paintings. The picture by Group of 7 artist Arthur Lismer of HMS Olympic in dazzle is not a fauvist hallucination, but a true record of the ship’s appearance just after the Armistice. The modernist painter Edward Wadsworth (British, 1889-1949) supervised the application of dazzle camouflage at the Liverpool naval shipbuilding yards during World War I. He painted the image above and others, and also made wood block prints depicting ships in dazzle. After the war, he also painted abstract compositions based on dazzle patterns.
Arthur Lismer, Olympic With Returned Soldiers, Halifax, 1918, Canadian War Museum
