Outsmarting the Art of Camouflage

Copperhead Snake on Dead Leaves, watercolor by Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849-1921). (Courtesy: Smithsonian American Art Museum) When the American painter Abbott H. Thayer published his book Concealing-Coloration in the Animal Kingdom in 1909, he put forth the hypothesis that animals’ colors served one function and one function only: to camouflage. While that theory has since been disproven (animal colors also play a role in threatening predators and attracting mates), his work made a significant impact on our understanding of camouflage and how it could be used in war. During World War I, both the French and the German militaries relied on his book to develop designs for camouflaging their soldiers, and it became required reading for the U.S. Army’s newly launched unit of camoufleurs. Thayer’s work noted how nature “obliterates” contrast by both blending into its environment and disrupting it by using arbitrary patterns to break up outlines. Thayer was ...