The Art of Concealment

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Camouflage is not all it seems. When man first daubed himself in mud, dressing to fool the eye was the art of the hunter rather than of the prey. Its use in military defense, according to "Camouflage," an exhibition at London's Imperial War Museum until November, evolved as a result of the advent of long-range precision weaponry. Only in 1915, when the French army established a specialist camouflage unit, did the study of concealment, distortion and deception techniques begin. But it was art, not military science, that led the way. "Armies realized they could put artists' knowledge of form, perspective and color to use," says James Taylor, historian at the Imperial War Museum. So the dislocations of Cubism (Jacques Villon and Marcel Duchamp served as camoufleurs) were a huge influence, as were the visual disruptions of Vorticism in the Dazzle patterns applied to Allied ships during World War I. Dazzle made it hard for the enemy to get a fix — a trait that could also help explain the rebellious appeal of camouflage patterns since the 1980s for fashion designers like Versace and Jean-Paul Gaultier, and pop idols from the Clash to Madonna. Whatever the angle, "Camouflage" is a must-see. www.iwm.org.uk