Art history students make Van Gogh’s paintings accessible to all

Imagine the color blue. Now, try describing it without naming it. Would you evoke the vastness of the sky or the tranquility of flowing water? Would you draw on other senses or mention the emotions it stirs in you?

This is one of the challenges Elizabeth Childs, the Etta and Mark Steinberg Professor of Art History, put to her students this semester. For two days in December, the students in her course “Van Gogh: Creativity, Mythology and Modern Art” ran audio description tours for visually impaired guests at the Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM). 

The students — two undergraduates and five graduate students — became deeply immersed in Van Gogh's paintings throughout the semester. In October, they traveled to London to view a blockbuster exhibition, "Van Gogh Poets and Lovers" at the National Gallery. There, they met with curator Cornelia Homburg — a former curator at WashU's Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum — and studied 61 works by Van Gogh, many of which had never been shown outside private collections. Each student gave a brief oral report in front of an object they had previously selected. Back in St Louis, they completed an exhibition review and wrote a scholarly essay exploring a larger theme connected to the Van Gogh works they had studied.

But that wasn’t all Childs had in mind for her students. “I wanted their experience this semester to be broader, and I wanted them to think about the difference between the academic and critical museum community and the larger public,” she said.

The words “Dedicated to Art and Free to All” are engraved on a stone facade over the Saint Louis Art Museum's doors. Childs believes the Van Gogh audio description tours, designed with SLAM staff, help fulfill the museum’s mission to serve all — including those with visual impairments that prevent them from enjoying art in traditional ways.

To prepare for working with visually impaired guests, Childs and her students trained with MindsEye Radio, a Belleville-based nonprofit that works to create a more inclusive community for the blind and visually impaired by translating visual experiences into audio. This includes making St. Louis’ most renowned cultural experiences — including the Muny, the Zoo, and Shakespeare in the Park — accessible audio experiences. Childs and her students underwent 16 hours of training through the MindsEye docent training program.

“We emphasize using simple, present action verbs in the audio descriptions,” said Magan Harms, the MindsEye employee who designed the training. “That way, the person listening who is visually impaired is hearing and learning at the same time a viewer sees it.” 

Designing a program for visually impaired guests is challenging because impairments can vary. “Some guests may be completely blind and have been blind since birth, but others may be partially impaired and can see shapes or may have had some vision and still remember color,” Childs explained.

Hold That Thought · Audio Description of "Still Life, Basket of Apples" | WashU Art History and Archaeology

Use the audio player above or click here to listen to student Rayna Li provide an audio description of Van Gogh’s “Still Life, Basket of Apples." We invite sighted readers to experience the art as it was intended for Saint Louis Art Museum’s visually impaired guests before scrolling to the bottom of the article to see the image.

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Kayla Hammonds, a senior majoring in math and art history, said it took some adjusting to go from her usual academic analysis to audio description. “It’s completely different,” she said. “Rather than looking at the artwork critically, it’s more literal, like dissecting. You have to describe it in detail without going overboard.”

In addition to crafting audio scripts, the class created sensory aids. Guests aren’t allowed to touch the Van Gogh paintings in the Saint Louis Art Museum, so Catie Cook, a second-year MFA student, created a copy of Van Gogh’s “Stairway at Auvers.” Guests were encouraged to touch the facsimile, experiencing Van Gogh’s signature chunky, impasto brush strokes. For each artwork, the students supplied participants with small 3D reproductions featuring raised outlines of the painting's main shapes and textured surfaces, created using a specialized reproduction technology called "swell form paper."

In December, the students put their newfound skills to the test with a group of Saint Louis Art Museum guests, including some who were visually impaired. The tour focused on five Van Gogh artworks from different periods of his development as an artist.

Hammonds, who was charged with describing “Vineyards at Auvers,” said she was initially nervous but became increasingly comfortable as she spoke. “I wanted to make sure I was cognizant of directing myself towards the guests and not the painting,” she said. 

She began by describing her physical appearance, followed by details about the canvas's size and shape, the color scheme, and the content of the images. She ended with how the painting makes her feel.

Hammonds said she thinks all WashU art and art history students should undergo similar training. “As an art history student, it helped me see in a different way,” she said. “It opened up another stream in my understanding of art.”

That’s exactly what Childs hoped students would take from the experience. Her greater goal is to empower her students to make the art world more inclusive, reaching beyond educated specialists, cultural elites, and non-disabled audiences. “I believe museums are for everyone, a place where all can have an experience that is expansive and significant.”