Ten Ways Visual Impairment Influenced Classic Artists

It’s easy to assume that in order to create any form of art, one must have perfect eyesight so they can paint rich landscapes like Claude Monet or draw sketches like Leonardo da Vinci. However, several of the most famous artists of all time had visual impairments, including Monet and da Vinci themselves. The following post lists that visual impairment has influenced classic art by highlighting ten famous visually impaired artists throughout history, including those that have either been confirmed to have, or are highly likely to have had, different types of vision loss from a variety of conditions.

Many of the diagnoses below are retrospective and inferred from paintings, letters, or contemporary accounts rather than medical records. Where peer-reviewed researchers have disagreed, I’ve noted the counterpoint so readers can weigh the evidence themselves.

Leonardo da Vinci and intermittent exotropia

Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian renaissance man in the 1400s and 1500s with many talents and research interests, which included painting, drawing, sculpting, and many more. After examining six of his works across three different techniques (drawing, painting, and sculptures), researchers noted that the eyes of the subject in each of his works turned outward. The eyes rest at an angle consistent with intermittent exotropia, meaning there were times where his eyes could present as normal and other times when one turned outward, leaving the vision in the other eye intact. Because of this condition, he is hypothesized to have seen people, places, and objects with reduced stereopsis, which could have aided the translation of three-dimensional scenes onto a flat canvas.

Marmor (2019) argues that the portrait attributions are uncertain, the measurements are of doubtful validity, and the premise that strabismus would aid depth representation is questionable.

Source: Tyler, C. W. (2018). Evidence That Leonardo da Vinci Had Strabismus. JAMA Ophthalmology, 137(1), 82–86. doi:10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2018.3833.
Counterpoint: Marmor, M. F. (2019). Leonardo da Vinci Probably Did Not Have Strabismus. JAMA Ophthalmology, 137(11), 1331–1332. doi:10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2019.2214.

Edgar Degas and retinopathy

Edgar Degas was a French artist in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He is one of the founders of the French Impressionist movement, with over half of his artistic pieces relating to dance. His eye condition was first noticed in 1870 while visiting his family home, when he noticed that he had trouble painting in bright sunlight, likely as a result of photosensitivity. The central vision was primarily affected, causing many of his later paintings to appear blurry. His cousin Estelle Musson had similar vision loss and became totally blind in her early 30s, so the condition is widely thought to have been hereditary.

In a 2021 follow-up, the authors tested five of Estelle Musson’s great-grandchildren for ABCA4 mutations and found none, concluding that Degas most likely did not have Stargardt disease, though a different hereditary retinal disorder remains likely.

Source: Karcioglu, Z. A. (2007). Did Edgar Degas Have an Inherited Retinal Degeneration? Ophthalmic Genetics, 28(2), 51–55. doi:10.1080/13816810701351313.
Follow-up: Karcioglu, Z. A., Stone, E. M., & Marmor, M. F. (2021). Did Edgar Degas have Stargardt disease? Ophthalmic Genetics, 42(4), 402–404. doi:10.1080/13816810.2021.1904418.

Guercino and esotropia

Guercino was an Italian artist in the 1600s who used the Baroque art style in the over 200 paintings and altarpieces he created during his lifetime. He got the nickname Guercino from the Italian word for “squinter.” This makes him one of the oldest confirmed artists with visual impairment. His biographer says he developed strabismus suddenly one night as an infant after he woke up to an “extremely loud and unusual noise” that resulted in his right eye permanently turning inwards, a condition known as esotropia. Many of his works showcase subjects with odd or unusual facial features much like his own, a theme that is most prominent in his caricature drawings.

Damen, G. (2014, March 27). Guercino Caricatures. Princeton University Art Museum. artmuseum.princeton.edu/art/stories-perspectives/guercino-caricatures

Auguste Renoir and myopia

Auguste Renoir was a French artist in the 1800s and early 1900s who was a member of the Impressionist movement and well known for his portraits. He is also recognized as having had myopia (nearsightedness), meaning he had difficulty seeing items that were far away. He considered the condition to be an advantage when painting landscapes, since they appeared softly blurred, creating an interesting contrast to his more detailed portraits.

Polland, W. (2004). Myopic artists. Acta Ophthalmologica Scandinavica, 82(3p1), 325–326. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0420.2004.00252.x.

Francis Bacon and dysmorphopsia

Francis Bacon was an Irish-born British artist from the 1900s known for surreal and unsettling artwork. In interviews with art critics, he described how images appeared to be constantly changing, almost like an optical illusion. His work features images with heavy distortion and abnormalities in face depiction. This is consistent with dysmorphopsia, a neurological condition that affects a person’s ability to perceive objects. The origin of his condition is unknown, but common causes include meningioma tumors, brain injury, or carbon monoxide poisoning.

Safran, A. B., Sanda, N., & Sahel, J.-A. (2014). A neurological disorder presumably underlies painter Francis Bacon distorted world depiction. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 581. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2014.00581. Open access at PubMed Central

Claude Monet and cataracts

Claude Monet was a French artist in the late 1800s and early 1900s and one of the founders of French Impressionism. His most famous works depict nature and the passing of time. From 1912 to 1922, his vision steadily declined due to cataracts that affected his color perception and visual acuity. Colors often looked muddy and had a yellowish tone to them, which he found highly frustrating, and he resisted surgical treatment for years. Many of his late paintings appear blurry and shifted toward red and yellow as a result of his failing vision.

Marmor, M. F. (2006). Ophthalmology and Art: Simulation of Monet’s Cataracts and Degas’ Retinal Disease. Archives of Ophthalmology, 124(12), 1764–1769. doi:10.1001/archopht.124.12.1764.

Georgia O’Keeffe and macular degeneration

Georgia O’Keeffe was an American artist of the 1900s. Her paintings of flowers, New York skyscrapers, and the landscapes of New Mexico are her most prominent works. She began experiencing symptoms of age-related macular degeneration in 1964, describing the onset as “a cloud entering her eyeballs” while driving from Ghost Ranch on a sunny day. She finished her last unassisted oil paintings in 1972 and thereafter enlisted assistants to help her in painting her work.

Georgia O’Keeffe. The Vision & Art Project. visionandartproject.org/artists/okeeffe-georgia-bio/

Rembrandt van Rijn and stereoblindness

Rembrandt van Rijn was a Dutch artist of the 1600s, one of the greatest artists in history, with training as a printmaker, painter, and draftsman. Many of his self-portraits show his eyes diverging, which would cause a lack of depth perception (stereoblindness). Livingstone and Conway proposed that this monocular vision could have been an advantage for translating three-dimensional scenes to a flat canvas, a skill they later showed to be more common among art students than the general population.

Marmor and Shaikh (2005) urge caution about retrospective diagnosis from self-portraits, noting the absence of controls and the uncertain reliability of estimating gaze direction from pupil position in paintings.

Source: Livingstone, M. S., & Conway, B. R. (2004). Was Rembrandt Stereoblind? The New England Journal of Medicine, 351(12), 1264–1265. doi:10.1056/NEJM200409163511224.
Counterpoint: Marmor, M. F., & Shaikh, S. (2005). Was Rembrandt stereoblind? [Correspondence] New England Journal of Medicine, 352(6), 631–632. doi:10.1056/NEJM200502103520622.

Mary Cassatt and diabetic retinopathy with cataracts

Mary Cassatt was an American artist in the 1800s and early 1900s who was a member of the Impressionist movement. Many of her paintings depict the public and private lives of women, with a special emphasis on mothers with children. Her art received praise from Edgar Degas, and she was the only American invited to participate in the Impressionist exhibitions.

Her visual problems began in 1900, at age 56, with declining acuity she described as growing “dimmer and dimmer.” In 1912, at age 68, she was diagnosed with cataracts by the prominent ophthalmologist Edmond Landolt, M.D., who is the same doctor who had previously treated Degas. By 1915 she was forced to give up her work, and around 1919 she was diagnosed with diabetes and developed a concurrent diabetic retinopathy. As her vision declined, she switched from oil paintings to pastels, favored large canvases over smaller ones, drew bolder lines instead of intricate details, and used fewer colors as her color vision deteriorated.

Source: Cassatt, Mary (1844–1926). UK Disability History Month. ukdhm.org/cassatt-mary-1844-1926-later-visually-impaired/
Peer-reviewed source: Lanthony, P. (2018). The influence of cataracts in the paintings of Mary Cassatt. Archivos de la Sociedad Española de Oftalmología (English Edition), 93(10), e73–e74. doi:10.1016/j.oftal.2018.05.002.

Pablo Picasso and strabismus

Pablo Picasso was a Spanish artist of the late 1800s and most of the 1900s who worked in a variety of mediums, including painting, sculpting, printmaking, and ceramics. He lived in France for a large part of his adult life and is credited with helping to found the Cubist movement. Some researchers have proposed that the flatness of his Cubist work may reflect reduced stereopsis, with Cubism’s emphasis on shading, perspective, and occlusion as substitutes for binocular depth cues.

The paper linked below is the underlying source for the strabismus-and-2D-art hypothesis applied to multiple artists, including Picasso.

Livingstone, M. S., & Conway, B. R. (2004). Was Rembrandt Stereoblind? New England Journal of Medicine, 351(12), 1264–1265. doi:10.1056/NEJM200409163511224.

More resources on visual impairment and art education

Published October 19, 2018. Updated June 2025

Reference

Lewis, Veronica. (2018). Ten Ways Visual Impairment Influenced Classic Artists. Veroniiiica. https://veroniiiica.com/ten-visually-impaired-artists/ (Accessed on May 31, 2026)