Cover story

Since Sir Edward Poulton’s pioneering study The Colours of Animals was published in 1890, the importance of disguise in the natural world — and, by extension, in the human one — has been widely recognised and exploited. As technology changed the patterns and prospects of warfare, with aerial reconnaissance and long-range shelling becoming a nasty reality, so the need for discretion and subterfuge was more readily apparent. No longer were scarlet uniforms a good idea on soldiers; no longer should an army stand up and be counted. Concealment and dissimulation were the order of the day. Honour, chivalry and honesty may have suffered irrecoverable body blows, but who cared? Dishonesty won wars. What the wider impact of this discovery on human nature may have been it is perhaps too early to tell, but it would make a fascinating subject for research. Instead, this exhibition examines the superficial influence that camouflage has exercised on culture during the past century — principally in the field of fashion. Interesting, but not quite so profound.

But as an exhibition it works extremely well, offering an investigation into the art, craft and science of camouflage in wartime and peacetime, through a display that is both informative and visually stimulating. It begins with the contemporary, a camouflage-pattern jacket and skirt designed in 2006 by Yohji Yamamoto, with the designer’s comment: ‘Sometimes people want to be another person.’ Well, you can see what he means. The viewer moves into the historical section, composed mainly of art and artefacts: as is the practice of camouflage, so is this exhibition made up of nice juxtapositions. Sydney Carline’s fine painting of an air attack on a Turkish transport makes a strong contrast with C.R.W. Nevinson’s dark oil of a tank, with a model tank in front of it by Percyval Tudor-Hart, who also designed some brilliant sniper suit material.