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There are a number of articles online about a blind, Turkish painter, Eşref Armağan. born without eyes, including a short Wikipedia entry. Purportedly, he's able to create paintings with color and perspective, representing real-world images in a way that's recognizable to sighted people. One of these includes a painting of Bill Clinton:

Painting of Bill Clinton by Eşref Armağan

The explanations of his ability seem overly simplistic. They tend to state something along the lines of the visual center of his brain becoming active when he paints, using his sense of touch, smell, and knowledge gained from other people to do so.

I'm not convinced that description and practice, along with activity in the visual center of the brain, could allow a person who was blind from birth to create images with recognizably correct shape, color. light and shadow that are easily recognizable to a sighted person. The paintings aren't especially abstract. This seems very fishy to me.

Are there any scientifically rigorous sources backing up his claim?

Oddthinking
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KChaloux
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  • What is this specific claim you want us to examine? –  Jul 27 '13 at 03:00
  • The last sentence in my question? Stated another way, *Are Esref Aramagan's abilities as a painter a hoax*? – KChaloux Jul 27 '13 at 03:13
  • Who has a [New Scientist](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18524841.700) subsription? – Oddthinking Jul 27 '13 at 08:16
  • @Oddthinking Not me :( – KChaloux Jul 27 '13 at 22:58
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    @Oddthinking [You](http://rense.com/general62/see.htm) – Dr. belisarius Jul 28 '13 at 03:04
  • @belisarius +1 For posting the free version of that. It's the best description I've seen for _how_ he can paint recognizable figures (it seems to come down to a lot of practice and outside guidance) – KChaloux Jul 29 '13 at 12:26
  • There is a discovery channel documentary about this ordinary ability http://www.mytopclip.com/play.php?vid=882 and a documentary movie named "The Colors of Darkness" (2000) by Julie Antepli http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362513/plotsummary?ref_=tt_stry_pl – edigu Aug 09 '13 at 10:24

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Yes, Eşref Armağan is a painter without properly developed eyes.

From http://rense.com/general62/see.htm, or http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18524841.700:

Armagan was born 51 years ago in one of Istanbul's poorer neighbourhoods. One of his eyes failed to develop beyond a rudimentary bud, the other is stunted and scarred. It is impossible to know if he had some vision as an infant, but he certainly never saw normally and his brain detects no light now.

  • So... can he paint pictures of people without anyone directing him? How does he choose colours? – nico Jul 29 '13 at 07:03
  • Let's talk about this in [chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/311/hub-of-reason). –  Jul 29 '13 at 12:03