Promoted to Captain, Saint-Gaudens was put in charge of the Camouflage Section of the Second Army in October, 1918. Later the paper was used on buildings or weapons. At first simple blankets were made of the material that could be dragged along by a sniper or scout on the ground, hiding underneath. The patterns on the paper made a kind of camouflage which would be enhanced by dyeing with green, brown or grey color. As a young Second Lieutenant of Engineers in France in 1918, he saw the shortage of cotton for blankets and recycled paper to make new cloth. During training he reused surplus coats from the Civil War to provide new material for uniforms. Trained in Plattsburgh, New York in 1917, he soon made a name for himself. After attending Harvard, he worked as a theatrical producer and writer before finding his career in Pittsburgh at the Carnegie Institute. Homer was raised in an atmosphere of art, but was not an artist himself. While these Cornish artists worked to bring their talents to the aid of America’s war effort, the son of the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the young Homer Saint-Gaudens (1880-1958), joined the camouflage unit of the Engineers. Beginning with natural camouflage and theatrical deception, as time went by the technique was organized into specific patterns. ![]() A scout or sniper could hide inside the horse unseen. Although not fully documented, Thrasher is credited with devising an artificial horse carcass to be placed next to a ruined weapons caisson. Barry Faulkner and Harry Thrasher were part of the initial American response to the war, developing elaborate cloaking techniques that proved too cumbersome for actual warfare. George DeForest Brush and his wife Mary Taylor Brush, joined later by their son Gerome, urged the navy to adapt coloration and patterns to camouflage ships. His son Gerald applied the theory to military camouflage. Thayer published Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom (1909) in which he described countershading (darker color on top, lighter below) in the animal world. In the United States, this development took place a few years later, using the talents of the artists of the Cornish Colony in Cornish, New Hampshire, at the site of the present-day Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site.The painters George DeForest Brush, Barry Faulkner and Abbott Thayer all worked to persuade the military to adopt principles of coloration to mask ships, weapons and troops. The British followed, with the Americans coming later. The theatrical nature of the subject encouraged artists to participate in the attempts to hide military personnel and actions. U.S.Army Signal Corps, 1917 in the collections of Saint-Gaudens National Historic SiteĬamouflage was first developed in France in 1914 by artist Lucien-Victor Guirand de Scévola and others. The soldier's head is hidden under the rock in the foreground, and his body under the sod near Wilson's feet. ![]() Saint-Gaudens asks a perplexed Wilson to find a man, concealed within ten feet of him. Homer Saint-Gaudens, at right, demonstrates the new camouflage to President Woodrow Wilson.
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