I don’t remember where I first came across the work of André Mare. He was a French artist who was associated with the Cubism and Art Deco movements, and his World War I sketchbooks are quite remarkable.

No discussion about Cubism can be complete without at least some mention of André Mare. Yet even in conversations amongst experts on the topic, it is rare that the name of this accomplished French artist and designer is brought up. Perhaps this is because Mare was admittedly not a pioneer of the Cubist method in the way that Picasso or Braque were. Nor was he necessarily a virtuoso of it, as were his friends and sometime collaborators Marcel Duchamp and Fernand Léger. Nor was Mare a top Cubist theorist, as were Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger—the authors of Du Cubisme, the Cubist manifesto. What then was the contribution Mare made to Cubist history? He was the first to apply Cubist theories to the art of war. The art of camouflage may date back to the earliest days of human civilization, but the first time it was ever officially and systematically used during wartime was in World War I. As a French army soldier, Mare was one of the first people drafted into a camouflage unit. He applied his talents broadly and successfully, leading his team in the development of a number of innovative techniques. He designed realistic looking fake trees, hollow on the inside so soldiers could climb up inside of them and use them as lookouts; he painted tanks, artillery, and the outside of tents to render them invisible from the air; and he designed and built false targets. We know about all of his ideas today because the whole time he was fighting, Mare kept a detailed diary of his experiences. Its pages show detailed, color drawings explaining how he used Cubist techniques to reduce objects in space to shapes, colors and planes in order to fool the eyes of German pilots. Just as with a Cubist painting, which strives to capture four-dimensional reality, Mare created trompe l’oeil worlds on the battlefield that captured a multitude of different perspectives all at once, so that even whilst moving, viewers could not be sure exactly what was passing before their eyes.

Read more at: IdeelArt: Andr̩ Mare РCamouflaging the War