Dazzle - Disguise and Disruption in War and Art

James Taylor, MA 1985

In 1917 Dazzle painting, also known as Dazzle camouflage, was conceived and developed by the celebrated marine artist and then naval commander Norman Wilkinson.

Dazzle rejected concealment in favour of disruption. It seeks to break up a ship’s silhouette with irregular patterns of colour to make a vessel’s speed and direction incredibly difficult to discern, and thus confuse and deceive German U-boat torpedo-men.

Wilkinson’s scheme led to several thousand ships mainly from Europe, USA and Canada going to sea as the largest painted modernist ‘canvases’ in the world covered in abstract, clashing, decorative and geometric designs in a myriad of colours. But did the scheme really work?

ISBN: 191086014X and 978-1910860144