Mimicry and Masks

This book is the first to contribute to the pre-history of camouflage, that is its history before its codification in Evolution Theory in the 1860s and 70s, and military use in World War I. Its history is in fact much older, going back to the zoological writings of Aristotle and observations of mimicry among animals and humans in Homer's Odyssey. Defining camouflage as an adaptive change of appearance or behaviour, this publication starts from the fact that this is a very common phenomenon among humans and animals, based on our common ability to create images. The mask is the point where animal and human camouflage meet. The essays do not only present a major stage in the history of camouflage, but also develop a new history and theory of the mask by reconstructing its origins in animal behaviour.First history of camouflage before Darwin, showing connections between image-making by animals and by humans in the artsOffers a new way of thinking about the mask and masquerade as a paradigm for image-makingMajor contribution to rethinking animal-human relations