Seeing with the hands

A century ago, a British museum curator named John Alfred Carlton Deas organized sessions where blind children could handle objects in the Sunderland museum collection.


The event was so successful that he expanded the program to include blind adults.


The idea makes sense not just for blind people, but also for visual artists. If you know how a form feels, you can definitely draw it better.


An interesting drawing exercise is to confront a novel object blindfolded and then, without looking at it, figure out how to draw it. The experience gives you a whole new understanding of shading and contours.

These photographs come from the Public Domain Review.