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Could a person who lacks depth perception potentially be a better artist?

Asked by PhiNotPi (12681points) August 31st, 2012

I am not a very good artist. Whenever I try to sketch something from the real world onto a 2D piece of paper, I feel like I can never get the objects to be the correct size, or the lines at the correct angles. I think that the problem that I have is that I don’t do a very good job of taking 3D objects and “flattening” them onto a piece of paper. Since I have depth perception (like most people), my brain tells me that an object that is farther away is larger, even if it takes up the same area on my visual field. It also tells me that certain lines (like the edge of my table) are horizontal, even though they are at closer to a 60 degree angle on my visual field.

This made me wonder if a person who lacks depth perception could potentially be a better artist, since they would not receive conflicting signals as to what angle something is in real life vs what angle it appears to be. Even though cases of people lacking depth perception are incredibly rare, I remember reading one article in which the person compared her own vision to a child’s drawing (she received some sort of therapy that allowed her to gain depth perception later in life).

Could lacking depth perception potentially help somebody draw something?

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