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The Dubious Inheritance of Touch: Art History and Museum Access
Abstract
Numerous museums and galleries now offer tactile opportunities as part of their access provision. This article asks why touch is deemed to be more accessible than vision as a way of learning about art and what repercussions that has for blind and visually impaired audiences. While touch has been discussed in many different contexts, touch also has a specifically art historical lineage where it is characterized in predominantly pejorative terms. This then raises serious questions concerning the use of touch within contemporary access provision: is touch used in access provision because it is considered to be more basic, easier than seeing? Does touch remain an adjunct to vision, a lesser, substitutive form of seeing? Alternatively, are art historical stereotypes so outdated that they are irrelevant for current museum practice? In which case does access provision show touch to be a qualitatively different route to knowledge? And, if this is not the case, how can we start to construct a model of touch that interlinks with vision without being subsumed by it, where touch concerns thought as well as feeling?
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In the citing paper
“Several challenges prevent the adoption of interactive multimodal guides at art museums and galleries.”
From Accessible Visual Artworks for Blind and Visually Impaired People: Comparing a Multimodal Approach with Tactile Graphics (2021) · cites this paper as [13]
In the citing paper
“One of them is the preservation efforts and prioritization of the primacy of vision to experience the art pieces [13].”
From Accessible Visual Artworks for Blind and Visually Impaired People: Comparing a Multimodal Approach with Tactile Graphics (2021) · cites this paper as [13]
Citations
Cites
No references could be resolved yet.
Research works printed but not linked: 12
- Berenson, B., 1938, Italian Painters of the Renaissance
- Berenson, B., 1950, Aesthetics and History
- 10.1017/CBO9780511805028 · DOI
- Gardner, H., 1993, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences
- Grigely, J., 2000, Points of Contact: Disability, Art and Culture, 31
- Holly, M. A., 1984, Panofsky and the Foundations of Art History
- Irving, M., 2005, Times online
- Iversen, M., 1993, Alois Riegl: Art History and Theory
- Panofsky, E., 1991, Perspective as Symbolic Form
- Podro, M., 1982, The Critical Historians of Art
- Riegl, A., 1985, Late Roman Art Industry
- Rodin, A., 1912, Art
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Cavazos Quero, L., Iranzo Bartolomé, J., & Cho, J. (2021) · Electronics · doi:10.3390/electronics10030297 · Cited by 86
“One of them is the preservation efforts and prioritization of the primacy of vision to experience the art pieces [13].”
BackgroundMaking Sense of Art: Access for Gallery Visitors with Vision Impairments
Holloway, L., Marriott, K., Butler, M., & Borning, A. (2019) · Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3290605.3300250 · Cited by 38
Metadata
- Authors
- Candlin, F.
- Affiliations
- British Museum (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Candlin, Fiona
- ORCID
- Candlin, Fiona
- Venue
- Journal of Visual Culture
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2006-08
- Volume
- 5
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 137-154
- ISSN
- 1470-4129 (ISSN-L)
- 1741-2994
- OpenAlex
- W2160296878
- Cited by
- 70
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 19.63
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Visual Culture (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Leverhulme Trust
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Museology › Museums and Cultural Heritage
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Visual Arts and Performing Arts › Visual Culture and Art Theory
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Museology › Libraries and Information Services
- Keywords
- touch, museum accessibility, vision and touch, sensory learning
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- The paper
- Candlin, F. (2006). The Dubious Inheritance of Touch: Art History and Museum Access. Journal of Visual Culture. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470412906066906
