Razzle Dazzle

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Photograph of the USS Mahomet 1918

British artist Norman Wilkinson (1878 - 1971) is credited as being the inventor of dazzle painting, or razzle dazzle, during World War I. Wilkinson was a prolific illustrator and maritime painter. During the war, he was assigned to submarine patrols and mine-sweeping at a time when German submarines were successfully sinking multiple British ships every day. Wilkinson’s brainstorm was not to try to camouflage the ships, but rather to create optical confusion. He wrote that a ship should be painted “not for low visibility, but in such a way as to break up her form and thus confuse a submarine officer as to the course on which she was heading”.

Wilkinson was assigned by the British Admiralty to head a unit of artists who designed and rendered various dazzle designs onto model ships. The designs were tested before being painted on larger ships. Wilkinson also served as a consultant to the U.S. Navy in its camouflage efforts…