The Art Institute of Chicago (U.S.) offered the blind and vision-impaired people the opportunity to ‘see’ by touching replicas of a few of its most popular works.

The museum re-created a handful of its art on tactiles. The technology involves making replicas of artwork on portable, machine-etched plastic that enable visually impaired people touch and feel them.

For years, the institute has had a ‘Touch Gallery’ of sculptures for the blind people but was looking to expand the audience, said Mickie Silverstein, Art Institute of Chicago. While the museum had been using Styrofoam to help explain tactile differences in paintings, the plastic boards are believed to be a one-of-a-kind approach unique to the Art Institute.

Joan Miro's ‘Personages with Star’ and the ‘Stone of the Five Sons Aztec’ tablet and Pierre Auguste Renoir's ‘Two Sisters (On a Terrace)’ were some works displayed at museum on tactile.

The etchings were remarkably precise. Even the untrained fingertips (blind visitors) could feel what the paintings depicted. And of course, descriptive Braille text accompanied the paintings.