Reality in blind people’s drawings. Research procedures and tools

Abstract

The study presented in this article looks at how the phenomena of reality are constructed in totally blind people’s drawings. Analysis focuses on drawing skills and their development seen based on drawings made by people who have been blind since birth. Raised-line drawings made on a special drawing film for blind people were analyzed. The analysis covered: 1. Blind people’s cognitive abilities – the way they see phenomena. 2. Abilities and ways of presenting phenomena in drawings. 3. Determining stages in the development of drawing skills in blind children as compared to the development of drawing skills in sighted children. The study was motivated by the desire to answer the following questions: What similarities and differences are there in the process of drawing by people with disabilities and in their drawings? What esthetic features (content, form, uniqueness of presentation, manner of displaying emotions) do blind children’s drawings have? How are the phenomena of reality depicted in blind people’s drawings? What difficulties do blind people encounter in making a drawing on a two-dimensional surface? Does blind children’s artistic development take place in a similar way as sighted children’s artistic development? Are blind children at a similar level of artistic development as their sighted peers? I proposed a model of artistic creation that takes into consideration the content and form of drawings and the artist’s creativity and emotionalism which was used as a tool in the analysis. All aspects of the analysis refer to the stages of drawing development in sighted children proposed by: Stefan Szuman, Viktor Lowenfeld, W. Lambert Brittain, and Georges-Henri Luquet.