Camouflage mimetico e il problema della rappresentazione pittorica / Mimetic Camouflage and the Problem of Pictorial Representation

Abstract

A hundred years ago , during the I World War, the first forms of military camouflage were devoloped. The earlier Unité de Camouflage was born in February 1915 in the french army. Mimetic camouflage design, called Disruptive Pattern Material (DPM), was the product of an intention of deceit based on concealment of equipment and facilities against the enemy. These primitive forms of invisibility searched the mimesis with the environment, and they developed both abstract and figurative solutions. This paper presents the mimesis pictorial solutions produced by the military camouflage, their relationships with avantgarde painting of the moment, and paradoxes posed on the concept of imitation in the field of contemporary art and visual culture, through the desestabilization of the notions of representation and naturalism.