This testimony, the fruit of a touching and indelible experience, stems from an encounter with a visually impaired girl, very very special indeed, and from her invitation to 'us' sighted people to visit some areas of the Vatican Museums, but on the sole condition of keeping our 'eyes closed'.
Enraptured by great emotion as well as curiosity, we accepted the invitation with particular enthusiasm.
We begin this journey with an analysis of a masterpiece by Myron depicting the Goddess Athena and Marsyas.
So we close our eyes and set off on this delicate adventure with the invaluable help of our visually impaired guides, extraordinary girls who, by working hard, have been able to draw great strength from what many would consider a weakness.
With gentleness and delicacy, then, starting with the statue of Marsyas, dating back to the first half of the 1st century AD, they guide us by letting us touch with both hands first the hair, then the face, the back and so on... leading us to grasp every detail and letting us perceive every single nuance, freeing the imagination and explaining elements that become much more real and alive to the touch than they appear to the eyes.
Much more complex seemed to be the process concerning paintings such as Caravaggio's Deposition, Raphael's Transfiguration or Melozzo's fresco.
Despite having at our disposal: the casts, which faithfully reproduce the characters depicted in each individual work, the cloths/fabrics of the clothes worn by the subjects of the painting and, where present, also hearing the musical instruments (see e.g. Melozzo's fresco), all of which are useful for understanding the work as a whole, the intuition of the paintings is rather difficult to understand and consequently to 'see'.
It is surprising, in fact, how our guides manage to point out details that our eyes miss.
We must certainly recognise the ingenuity, sensitivity, dedication and commitment of those who, despite having all five senses at their disposal, strongly wanted art to be accessible to all.
I am honoured to have had the opportunity to live this wonderful experience that allowed me to approach art with new eyes.

Patrizia

See also our article on 'Art for the blind“

Dr. Carmelo Chines
Direttore responsabile