Les Camoufleurs

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Artists became integral to the military effort of France during World War 1. Changing forms of warfare and modern firearms, made the traditional colorful uniforms of the French army impractical. Nearly all the soldiers still wore the famous red trousers advertising their presence to enemy soldiers.

In 1915, the French army established the world’s first military unit dedicated to disguise—the Section de Camouflage (from the French camoufleur - to veil or disguise). The artists who were assigned to the unit became knows as the Camoufleurs. Artist Lucien-Victor Guirand de Scévola, who had studied at the École des Beaux Arts established the first camouflage team. It began with thirty artists, but expanded over the war to three thousand. In addition to hand-painting the patterned camouflage fabrics for military uniforms, the teams painted canvas screens and netting to hide gun locations and created artificial observation trees. Seven million square yards of fabric was used by the end of the…