by Mary Horlock
She nods quickly. ‘But the light isn’t very good. I mean, this is not the ideal place to view it.’
We are standing in the basement storeroom of the Imperial War Museum, hemmed in by metal racks that stretch from floor to ceiling. There is no natural light, of course, and the air is cold and still. These wire racks before me are lined with paintings of every description and it’s both amazing and depressing to see how much is hidden. I stare off into the shadows to other doors, conscious that my great-grandfather made similar trips, not to this exact store but to one surely like it, all those years ago. Back then, he came to the museum in search of artefacts. Now he has become one.
I’ve come back to A Ration Party, Joe’s first war painting. It was once very popular with the public, according to Ernest Blaikley, who singled it out for special mention. That Blaikley admired it means something, but it hasn’t been on display here for years. ‘An incident in a famous battle’1 is lost amidst hundreds of other such incidents. Looking at it now, I can understand why. It is a vivid depiction of a true event, combining factual detail with drama and action, but perhaps it is too naturalistic. This war, the First World War, shattered old certainties and traditions, and afterwards nothing would look the same again. A break was needed. Younger artists like Paul Nash and Christopher Nevinson responded with a bold and brutal language of hard edges and Cubist forms that resonate to this day. They provide the narrative thread in the galleries upstairs.
Joe simply didn’t shock enough.
It is the abiding paradox of camouflage: that it is as much about standing out as blending in. But why do I mention camouflage? Because I see it in A Ration Party, how every form is blended and layered, how brushstrokes merge and mingle. I see it in all Joe’s paintings and drawings from the time, and I can read about it, too, in his archive, sealed away in another part of this museum.
It’s as if Joe left a trail of breadcrumbs for me to follow him back through time, but still he is elusive. How to distinguish between art and camouflage, and should I even try? As I make my way upstairs into daylight, I linger for a moment in the crowded ground-floor galleries, and now I’m thinking about camouflage, of course, I can see it everywhere. There are Spitfires hanging, trucks abandoned, artillery everywhere, all decked out in wildly disruptive patterns. It is hard to imagine any of them blending into a background, yet this is what most people know to be camouflage: fractal greens, browns and greys arranged in a seemingly chaotic pattern.
‘I very well remember at the beginning of the war being with Picasso on the boulevard Raspail when the first camouflaged truck passed. It was at night, we had heard of camouflage but we had not yet seen it and Picasso amazed looked at it and then cried out yes it is we who have made it, that is cubism.’2
These words, written by the poet Gertrude Stein, have done much to contribute to the popular idea that Cubism gave birth to camouflage. But appearances can be deceptive. From what I’ve read and seen, it was the traditional artists who shaped this story, which became Joe’s story. Take, for example, Solomon J. Solomon: he was a Royal Academician, a history painter and portraitist whose approach to camouflage was firmly realist. Solomon stressed that only the artist skilled at modelling could understand camouflage. More than that, Solomon was working from the theories of another renowned portrait and landscape painter, the American Abbott Handerson Thayer.
Thayer has been called the ‘father of camouflage’. He is best known for his paintings of idealised beauty – ethereal women and children – but he sought the same purity and beauty in nature, and it was his close observation of the natural world that led him to deduce two theories of what he called ‘Concealing Colouration’. Thayer saw how many birds and animals were darkly coloured on the back – where they received the most sunlight – and paler on the shadowy regions of their underside, which afforded them greater protection. He also noticed how the disruptive markings of certain animals, such as spots and stripes, helped to disguise their contours. Such ideas were clearly in Solomon’s mind when he wrote to The Times on the subject of uniforms and colour, and there’s evidence that both the French and the British referred to Thayer’s book, Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom, published in 1909.
Thayer was eager to assist the military after the First World War broke out and travelled to England in 1915, having persuaded his old friend and respected painter John Singer Sargent to fix a meeting at the British War Office. However, Thayer was a nervous type who buckled when confronted with any kind of criticism. After touring the country he left Sargent to attend in his place, equipped with a suitcase containing a decrepit hunting jacket, to which he’d attached painted rags, fabric swatches and his wife’s stockings. It was not a million miles away from the ‘Ghillie suit’ of the Lovat Scouts, but to Sargent, it was an obscenity. (‘A bundle of rags!’ he later fumed. ‘I wouldn’t have touched it with my stick!’3)
Thayer’s interest in visual representation – his knowledge of light and shade and the tricks of preception – could have made him receptive to Cubism and its fractured forms, but when he first encountered it at the Armory Show of 1913 he was outraged. Like Solomon, and like Joe, Thayer saw it as an affront to all that he valued.
Solomon had made his name with history paintings, and when that fell out of fashion had turned to portraiture. He was fifty-four when the war broke out and the energy he devoted to camouflage could be seen as a defence against changing tastes in art. This, after all, is a man who regularly lambasted the silly rebellions of the avant-garde and made it perfectly clear his deciphering of German camouflage ‘was a triumph of classical perspective over modern deception’.4
It’s interesting, then, to consider camouflage not as a by-product of Cubism but a refusal or rebuttal of it. The head of the French ‘service de camouflage’, Guirand de Scévola, was himself a traditional painter. True, he recruited all schools of artists into his unit, from Impressionists (whose interest in changing atmospheric effects undoubtedly served them well) to Cubists, such as Jacques Villon and André Mare. But it was Guirand de Scévola who took the credit for a patterning technique applied to artillery that became known as ‘zébrage’ and bore a likeness to Cubism, and he insisted that his invention was by no means a homage. Cubism fractured and flattened the figure to reveal its every facet, whereas camouflage did the opposite: ‘To deform totally the appearance of an object,’ he wrote, ‘I had employed the means by which the Cubists used to represent it.’5
Yet if camouflage blurred the line between traditional and avant-garde, then it’s the example of dazzle painting that is the most compelling. Dazzle painting was the brainchild of Norman Wilkinson, a professional marine painter who, like Joe, had worked as a popular illustrator and whose work was regularly published in the Illustrated London News before the start of the war. Whilst Joe went into the Army, Wilkinson had joined the Navy. Having worked on submarine patrols in the Dardanelles, Gallipoli and Gibraltar, Wilkinson had taken charge of a minesweeping launch in Devonport in 1917.
Knowing how effective submarines could be at tracking targets, he hit upon a novel idea for ship camouflage: ‘since it was impossible to paint a ship so that she could not be seen by a submarine, the extreme opposite was the answer – in other words to paint her, not for low visibility, but in such a way to break up her form and thus confuse a submarine officer as to the course on which she was taking.’6
The proposed method, named dazzle painting, obliterated the contours of the ship by applying irregular blocks of strongly contrasting colours, ‘consequently making it a matter of difficulty for a submarine to decide on the exact course of the vessel to be attacked’.7
It was striking in theory and in practice, and Wilkinson was, thankfully, very practical. Like Guirand de Scévola, he was already inside the military machine when he hit upon his plan, and after securing the approval of the Admiralty he was able to use studios at the Royal Academy schools and enlist the help of fellow artists. By the start of 1918, some 4,400 vessels
had been painted with dazzle camouflage. These eye-catching designs with their energetic zigzags and repeated diagonals shared a likeness to both Cubism and the style of the Vorticists – the British answer to Italy’s Futurists – and Wilkinson had been quick to recruit the prominent Vorticist Edward Wadsworth to his project.
The effectiveness of dazzle camouflage (or ‘Razzle Dazzle’ as some called it) wasn’t easy to prove, but it was adopted by the Americans with enthusiasm and swiftly secured a place in the popular imagination. In 1919 the Chelsea Arts Club even held a ‘Great Dazzle Ball’ in its honour, where much was made of the unlikely combination of art, fashion and the military. ‘Four British naval officers, distinguished for their success at camouflage, had charge of designing the dresses, and the ballroom looked like the Grand Fleet with all its warpaint on, ready for action. Who could have thought a dozen years ago, when the Secessionists began to secede and the Cubists began to cube, that soon all governments would be subsidizing this new form of art to the extent of millions a year?’8
Was camouflage really a ‘new form of art’? Solomon and Guirand de Scévola emerged from the war with their traditional aesthetic intact, as indeed did Wilkinson. He’d go back to painting maritime subjects in an entirely realist vein, and looking at his works in the Imperial War Museum, there’s no discernible break in style.
Perhaps then, camouflage made a neutral space where the academic and avant-garde could meet and try to make sense of each other. It allowed for temporary connections and collaborations. It cut across styles and and started conversations.
Norman Wilkinson did not yet know Joseph Gray, but their paintings were on display at the museum for a long time after Armistice, and Blaikley rated both. He viewed them as artists who had taken their direct experience of the war and created powerful records of the time.
Such records were still needed. As late as 1931 Blaikley was still fielding requests from artists, begging to have their work accessioned into the collection. He also offered advice to those seeking to commission new work. One morning he gave a gallery tour to a group of officers from the Sherwood Foresters. They had come to him to discuss their hopes for a series of paintings that would depict their regiment’s involvement in different theatres of the war. As they paused for some time before A Ration Party, Blaikley suggested Joseph Gray would be a good fit for a Neuve Chapelle work. Norman Wilkinson, meanwhile, could paint the Dardanelles campaign.
Both artists were commissioned at the exact same time by the exact same regiment. This would be Joe’s last war picture, his last faithful recreation of a battle now long past. But if the painting itself wasn’t important, the connections it made were crucial.
Perhaps I am trying too hard to find the origins and explanations for the path Joe would soon take, but it was a small world, this art world and if Joe was beginning to wonder what use a traditional, representational war artist might be in this fast-changing world, he only had to look over his shoulder to see.
Or put another way: you don’t neccesarily have to be a radical artist to have a radical idea.
Notes
CAB = Cabinet Papers
CD, TC, CDTC = Camouglage Development and Training Centre
HO= Home Office
IWM = Imperial War Museum
PREM = Prime Minister’s Office Records
TNA = The National Archives
WO = War Office
Jack Sayer, ‘The Camouflage Game’, refers to his unpublished, hand-written memoir, courtesy of Gillian Ward.
To avoid repetition, the majority of quotes from Joseph’s letters to Mary are not noted. Unless stated otherwise, they form part of the Barclay family archive. Similarly, images reproduced form part of this archive, except where credited otherwise.
1 J. Gray in a letter, IWM First World War Art Archive, ART/WA1/125
2 Gertrude Stein, Picasso, Dover Publications Inc., New York, 1985, p. 11
3 Richard Merryman, ‘A Painter of Angels Became the Father of Camouflage’, Smithsonian, April 1999, www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/A-Painter-of-Angels-Became-the-Father-of-Camouflage.html#ixzz1EJFQnhZD
4 Patrick Wright, Tank, Faber & Faber, London, 2000, p. 57
5 Guirand de Scévola, ‘Souvenirs du Camouflage (1914–1918)’, quoted in Kahn, p. 19
6 Norman Wilkinson, A Brush with Life, Seeley Service & Co., London, 1969, p. 79
7 Norman Wilkinson, ‘The Dazzle Painting of Ships’ lecture, Victory Meeting, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 10 July 1919, reproduced in abridged form in ex. cat. Camouflage, Scottish Arts Council Touring Exhibition, 1988
8 The Independent, New York, USA, 3 May 1919, p. 160
is for Enemy: keep him in doubt When you must make a mess what that mess is about
Dear Blaikley,
It was nice of you to think of me when the painting proposition was suggested to you, and it so happens that at this moment I am again in touch with military folk and I should be glad to undertake any commissions of this description. In a few weeks I shall be taking a studio near Kensington. I hope to meet you personally then and could discuss the matter with you and with the army officers.1
The year was 1932; so many years had passed but it was still the war, the war, the war.
Joseph Gray, once considered ‘the Black Watch artist’,2 recognised by others now as an ‘eminent etcher’,3 was trying to be both and more, and he was moving to London to do it. A fresh start. A clean state. Only it wasn’t and couldn’t be.
He had immersed himself in landscape and built up a decent reputation as ‘an etcher of the hills and sea’,4 travelling widely to find fresh inpsiration. He had become a master of mood, of a storm brewing or a dawn breaking. Blaikley had seen them reproduced in the various art magazines, where they had drawn much praise. This, in fact, made him cautious. He wasn’t sure how Joe felt about returning to war subjects: ‘It occurred to me that perhaps you might not feel inclined to execute this work. I know you have been doing work of a rather different nature lately?’5 Yet Blaikley also knew that times were hard. Print-making had offered only the shortest-lived livelihood; the Crash of 1929 had seen to that.
Joe was trying his best to ride over the crisis, or at least give that impression. His reply to Blaikley was buoyant: ‘I have recently once more turned to portraiture. At portraiture, particularly portraits of men, I have always been very successful, and it is primarily as a portrait painter that I am “setting up” in London.’6
Blaikley was surprised but then reasoned that it wasn’t such a leap. Joe’s war paintings had always contained portraits, after all – and very good ones at that. So there it was: Joseph Gray: Black Watch artist, eminent etcher, and now portrait painter.
A man forging his own destiny, or a slave to changing tastes in art? He was both, he was more and he was doing it with style. Joe had rented a studio at 33 Tite Street, Chelsea, an address he advertised proudly. It had the richest kind of history, the most glamorous associations that he hardly had to hint at. This was the building previously occupied by John Singer Sargent, one-time friend of Abbott Thayer. Sargent had been a great realist painter and renowned portraitist, the man responsible for the vast and iconic Gassed, a stand-out masterpiece of the last war.
No wonder Joe looked pleased when he greeted Blaikley and Lieutenant Colonel Wilkinson from the Sherwood Foresters. The three men stood together, admiring the pilaster-lined walls and high ceilings, the fall of a cold October light through the vast arched window. The bite in the air didn’t matter, since the past encircled them, glittering and warm. A decade ago all manner of the great and good had come here in search of immortality, to have their portraits painted by Mr Sargent. Joe just needed a fraction of his success. He paced the room and spoke confidently and easily, showing off various examples of his work and describing the rigours of his process. He listed recent commissions and name-dropped indiscriminately.
‘That was a £750 picture but of course I can do anything from £10 upwards.’
Did that sound
a little desperate? One had to be careful not to sound too eager. They quickly turned to the subject of Neuve Chapelle. Joe furrowed his brow, nodding thoughtfully as he listened to the brief. He was clearly the right man for the job.
The war, the war, the war – how it now encircled them. John Shann Wilkinson had enjoyed an illustrious career with the Sherwood Foresters, serving in India, Africa, Ireland, and latterly the War Office. He’d be back there soon enough, in fact, and promoted to brigadier. It felt somewhat disconcerting to be arranging depictions of a war long past when another looked increasingly likely. Disarmament was constantly being redefined, and the inferior state of Britain’s air defences was now called ‘Britain’s Air Peril’. In just one month’s time Stanley Baldwin would raise the matter in Parliament: ‘I think it is well also for the man in the street to realise that there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed. Whatever people may tell him, the bomber will always get through.’7
Joe’s elegant sales patter did at least acknowledge current difficulties: ‘The higher priced etching market is now under a cloud – particularly in America. My agents in Bond Street advise limitation of additions and plates so as to maintain prices.’8
This was what he told people but it wasn’t strictly true. Harold Dickens, his so-called Bond Street agent, had cut him off in 1928 and would scrupulously record his own version of events: ‘Gray’s market had passed the boom – large stocks were coming into auction,’ and, ‘I told him I had not committed myself in any way – I had studiously avoided making any fuss of him when he was in London.’9
Joe glossed over such difficulties, as was now his way. ‘I considered it advisable to change my publisher’10 was all he ever said. As far as he could tell, everyone was lying to everyone else, pretending they had prospects when really there were none. Private patronage was dying out, the commerical galleries were closing, but an artist had to make his own opportunities. Joe would paint the Thames, he would paint Neuve Chapelle, he would paint any lord or general or bishop who knocked on his door. He clung to the world he recognised just when everyone else seemed to be shifting towards extremes.
