ART OF CAMOUFLAGE.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 February 1920, Page 12

ART OF CAMOUFLAGE.

WAR SECRETS REVEALED.

A side of the war which muck interested the public was the use made of ;amouflage. But while the struggle con; tinned only partial glimpses of this new art were obtainable. More can now be learned of it from an exhibition of works by camoufleur artists and examples of camouflage which occupy three galleries at Burlington House (London). The collection is representative, not only of the two principal military organisations—the camouflage Park and Camouflage School—but also of the naval dazzle-painiting section of the Machine Gun Corps and Tajik Corps Camouflage Schools.

The French were before us in taking up the study of methods of concealment, and to the end they practised them on a larger scale. But from a small beginning made in 1916, the British Camouflage Park developed into a large organisation, employing about GO officers, 400 n.c.o.'s and men, and some thousands of civilians. Most of the officers and many of the n.c.o.'s and men were artists, and the exhibition comprises, besides examples of camouflage modelled on a small scale, pictures of the. effects of camouflage and of camouflage workers at tlieir task, views of battlefields and ruins in the war zone, and a.number of sea pieces, with dazzle and other craft, illustrating the naval side of the war.

The second picture in the catalogue— l Lieutenant-Colonel Solomon J. Solomon's "Our First O.P. Tree"—brings to one's notice a very striking example of camouflage. Trees irt suitable spots for use as artillery observation po9ts were in a number of eases; pulled tip and steel bullet-lproof imitations substituted, during the night. In another picture ---a portrait (149) —may be seen among the accessories a model of ft soldier's head made by camouflage workers to draw the fire of snipers, When such a head had been perforated by a bullet the line of perforation pointed to the spot where the sniper was concealed, and the spot was promptly drenched with fire. Tho baffling effects of dazzle-painting are well shown in a number of paintings and drawings, conspicuous among which is Lieutenant Christopher Clark's picture of the Aquitania, completely broken up to the eye, by stripes and jags and other strange markings.

The models of camouflaged places are most interesting; and instructive to study. The problem which had to he attempted was not merely that of cheating the human eye—4 comparatively simple matter—but of evading detection by photographs from the air. Guns: were often hidden beneath areas of netting spread with herbage to resemble the adjoining ground. But then the blast from their discharge bared telltale spots in tlie grass, and to hide these movable green covers were made. And so gradually one defect after another was remedied. Sometimes whole fields were covered with netting carrying artificial layers of vegetation, under which extensive stores might he concealed. This was done on a considerable scale at Cambrai. When parts of paths were obliterated in this way imitations of them were included in the camouflage. On shell-pit/ted ground, spotted with circular shadows, the camouflage patches were cut in such forms as to add further circular shadows, and the degree of concealment thus obtained was remarkable. The models include one or two examples of "how not to do it."