Picasso Wins World War 1

Art Project Recreates WW I Dazzle Ships. BBC Story.

In WWI, the cutting edge art movement of Cubism and Vorticism- something I have on occasion been accused of being a late example of - was immediately deployed by the Royal Navy to paint thousands of ships in patterns and colors that would confuse a U-Boat commander as to the direction of a vessel. Art students were called up to cover ship after ship. Did it work? Can't say. But it was fascinating, and a modern art project paints some of the last WWI vessels- beautiful example above.  So why did they stop when it might really work ? Military aesthetics: the desire for gray.

High Explosives

Reverse image: a Boeing B-17 flies over trees in Discovery Park in Seattle, May 2014.

I recognized the roar of her four massive, distinctive radial engines before I saw her and I got a shot of one of the few flying B-17 bombers in the air. 

I reversed the values: the resemblance between a negative image of trees and bomb explosions is interesting. My first thought: trees grow like explosions and produce oxygen. Bombs burn,  and consume it. The organic looking structures resemble one another, distinguished by, among other things, the Amplitude of Time.