DPM: Disruptive Pattern Material: An Encyclopedia of Camouflage: Nature, Military, Culture

by Hardy Blechman and Alex Newman, Editors
DPM Limited, London, 2004
One-volume edition: Firefly Books Limited, Richmond Hill, Ontario, CA
624 pp., illus. Trade, $125.00
ISBN: 1-5540701-1-2
Two-volume edition: Maharishi Hardy Blechman, Ltd., London, UK
944 pp., illus. 5000 col. Trade, £100
Includes Swatch Viewer and Origami Papers
Distributor’s website: http://www.dpmhi.com
ISBN: 0-9543404-0-X.

Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens
Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa, USA

ballast@netins.net

I was sent an advance copy of the two-volume slip-cased version of this highly unusual volume because several texts I authored are included in it. (This review is about that edition, since I haven't yet seen the one-volume version, the contents of which are identical to the first volume of the prior edition.) The book is so out of the ordinary that for weeks after it arrived, I carried it with me wherever I went, in part to show it to my friends, but also to share it with students, university colleagues, and anyone else who would likely be astonished by its bulk and remarkable detail. Not being as young as I once was, I now carry it less frequently, because, in its slipcase, the two-volume U.K. edition (with its retrieval ribbon, dust jackets, inserts, and so on) weighs more than eight pounds. I was not surprised to receive an early copy, since I've known that the book was being prepared for about six years. About that many years ago, I received an unexpected note from an upscale London fashion firm called Maharishi (founded and inspired by Hardy Blechman, its Creative Director), asking if I would be willing to be a contributing writer on a huge encyclopedic book on camouflage clothing and culture. I responded but not with great fervor, for the simple reason that, as an author of books and articles on art and camouflage, I get e-mails weekly from all over the world, few of which have any result. Eventually I did contribute to this project——by writing and illustrating several sections on art and camouflage, by lending historical images from my own research files, and by locating current U.S. artists whose art pertains to camouflage. Otherwise, I had little to do with its gestation, so I really was fully and greatly amazed by the book's complexity when I first held it in my hands (or rather, given its size, sat down and propped it on my lap)

Months later, I am still propping it on my lap (if any book, whatever scale, is inexhaustible, this surely is) and savoring each pleasurable moment as I gradually acquaint myself with its many levels of content, both visual and verbal (to view online sample page layouts, go to http://www.dpmpublishing.com). Having researched and written about camouflage for more than forty years, I know the territory. That said, what I find most impressive about this gargantuan production is the extent to which its contents are all-encompassing, factually accurate, and, in many cases, comprised of both pictures and data that have rarely, if ever, been published before. I was especially pleased to find so much new information on the World War I field camouflage of French artists, who are most commonly credited with its first systematic adoption; on the changes that have taken place, worldwide, in the design of field service uniforms (the entire second volume is a visual and verbal account of the military camouflage patterns employed by 107 nations); on the camouflage-based experiments of a considerable number of contemporary artists (visual and otherwise) from throughout the world, including, for example, French artist Laurant La Gamba (who paints his sitters to blend in with product-laden grocery shelves) and Wisconsin performance artist Harvey Opgenorth (who visits art museums dressed in colored clothing that enables him to merge with the paintings of Ellsworth Kelly [a camoufleur in WWII], Mark Rothko, Henri Matisse and others); and on the burgeoning popular use of camouflage patterns on the wisest range of commercial products, including such items as clothing, toys, vehicles, hunting equipment, dinnerware, furniture, and even toilet paper.

Among the most striking examples of historic camouflage applied to upscale fashion is a collection of breathtaking fabrics produced just this season by Maharishi, called "Bamdazzle" (an allusion to WWI ship camouflage, called "dazzle painting"). As is often pointed out, camouflage predates human warfare, in the sense that sensational models abound among animals and plants. In addition, despite the stereotype, it need not always be allied with the military, and repeatedly throughout this book, as explained in its publicity, "a strong anti-war sentiment is expressed with the emphasis on camouflage's natural and artistic beauty." Indeed, one might even go further and claim that the main value of this extraordinary publication is the freshness with which it informs us about the predilections of human vision——and the ease with which we are beguiled.

(Reprinted by permission from Ballast Quarterly Review, Vol. 20, No. 1, Autumn 2004.)