"Am I posing the right way?" Liu Jingchun murmurs to his assistant.

Tucking his cane behind his back, the blind man stoops, shifting his weight onto his right foot while straitening the left one behind him and extended left arm toward his ear.

He's hoping to strike the same pose as the sculpture he has just touched - the Borghese Warrior from the renowned Louvre Museum in Paris.

When he's told he isn't standing exactly like the sculpture, he reaches out to feel it again.

Eighteen replicas of sculptures from the museum's Sculpture in Movement are on display at the Beijing World Art Museum of the China Millennium Monument.

Photo by Jiang Dong

Most of the museum's halls have signs asking visitors to refrain from touching the exhibits - but not this one, which is intended for guests with visual impairments.

The exhibits, including reproductions of Venus de Milo, Borghese Gladiator and Rebel Slave, are resin or plaster reproductions of the marble originals, project manager of the Louvre's education department Cyrille Gouyette says.

Gouyette explains the replicas are precise copies, because the museum used 3D laser readings to recreate them.

Liu made the trip from neighboring Tianjin specifically to visit the exhibition after his friend told him about it.

"This charitable contribution makes our dream of engaging the realm of art come true," Liu says.

"It's an unprecedented event, and the organizers are angels to blind people."

Volunteers led about 40 visitors with visual impairments from Beijing Hong Dandan Education and Culture Exchange Center to visit the exhibition. Most people at first didn't know how to enjoy the exhibition and just ran their hands over the works, which was missing the point.

Zhang Xi, a college-aged volunteer who trained to become an assistant for the exhibition, took elderly guests' hands and helped them understand the statue of Venus.

"Because Venus was considered a goddess of love, her body is more abstractly rendered above her waist, but her lower body is more realistic," she says, guiding an older visitor's hands over the artwork's surface.

Zhang refrained from explaining any more, because doing so might restrict blind guests' imaginations. She says the exhibit strives to "use the sense of touch to make people think".

"People can feel artists' creative intentions through the works' countenances, movements, textures and clothes," Zhang says.

Japan International Agency China Office representative ODA Ryotaro marveled at the show.

"It's an exhibition that has a power to move," he says.

"The blind here show a strong thirst for art and are certainly more attentive to some details than sighted people," he says.

"I've never been to the Louvre Museum, so it is a good opportunity for me as well to see and touch the treasures, although they are all copies. Even if I visit the real exhibits in the Louvre, it is hard for me to enjoy them all in a short time."

The museum also has pathways designated for people with visual impairments and Braille signage for every exhibit.

The Louvre staged its first "touching exhibition" in 1995.

The display is free to all people who have disabilities.

In October, family-oriented activities will be held, including classes in which participants will learn how to paint, sketch and sculpt the artworks on show.

The exhibition will also travel to other Chinese cities, including Fuzhou, Wuhan and Hong Kong.

9 am-5:30 pm, until Nov 1. 30 yuan for non-vision-impaired visitors. A9 Fuxing Lu, Haidian district. 5980-2222