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Last updated 13/1/2025

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Symmetrical inkblots are made by pouring, dripping, splashing, splattering or painting ink or paint onto a sheet of paper, folding it in half, pressing the two halves of the paper together then opening out the fold. The ink or paint will be found to have transferred from the lower to the upper surface leaving a symmetrical pattern spread across both halves of the paper.

The making of symmetrical inkblots by folding a sheet of paper in this way appears to be a folk art, and as such we do not know when or where it was first practised.

From 1896 onwards, symmetrical inkblots have also been used by psychologists as the basis of psychological tests. The dates of publication of some early material relating to this subject have been added to this page. These details are taken from 'The Origin of Inkblots' by John T E Richardson which can be accessed online here.

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1857

Date of the Introduction by Justinus Kerner to his book 'Klecksographien' which, however, is said not to have been published until 1890, some years after his death. See entry below.

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1886

The Summer 1886 issue of 'The Boy's Own Paper' contained an article on 'Smudgeography; Or How To Tell The Character By Handwriting'. Compare the entry for 1890 below. Be advised that in both cases one of the sentences contains racially offensive terms.

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1890

'Klecksographien' by Justinus Kerner is said to have been published in this year, although the Introduction is dated 1857. The symmetrical inkblot pictures in the book are each accompanied by a poem inspired by the image.

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The article that had [reviously appeared in 'The Boy's Own Paper' in 1886 was included in 'The Boy's Own Book of Indoor Games and Recreations', by G A Hutchinson, which was published by the J B Lippincott Company in Philadelphia in 1890.

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'The Boy's Own Paper' issue 612 0f 4th October 1890 contained an article entitled 'More Ink Blurs' by Rev. J. B. Bartlett.

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1896

A second book of inkblot art and poetry, 'Gobolinks or Shadow Pictures', written by Ruth McEnery Stuart and Albert Bigelow Paine, was published in New York by Century Co in 1896.

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The September 1896 issue of the American children's magazine St Nicholas contained an article on Gobolinks including pictures and poems extracted from this book.

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Publication of an article 'La psychologie individuelle' by A Binet A. & V Henri in 'Année Psychologique', 2, 411–465 which, according to Richardson (see above) 'suggested that the interpretation of inkblots could be used to study variations in ‘involuntary imagination’'.

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1897

Publication of 'Blots of ink in experimental psychology' by G V Dearborn, 'Psychological Review', 4, 390–391, which, according to Richardson (see above) 'recommended inkblots for use in experiments on perception, memory and imagination'.

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1907

A third book of a similar type, entitled 'Blottentots and how to make them', written by John Prosper Carmel, was published by Paul Elder and Company of New York and San Francisco in 1907.

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1908

Publication of 'Elementary experiments in psychology' by C E Seashore in New York which, according to Richardson (see above) was 'an early manual of psychology experiments, one of which used the presentation of inkblots to demonstrate the interpretative nature of perception'.

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1910

According to Richardson (see above) 'In Moscow, Binet’s work led Theodor Rybakov to include inkblots in an ‘atlas’ of procedures for clinical and educational investigations of personality published in 1910.'

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1921

Publication of 'Psychodiagnostik: Methodik und Ergebnisse eines wahrnehmungsdiagnostischen Experiments' by H Rorschach, H in Bern, Germany. According to Richardson (see above) 'Rorschach’s original contribution was to propose that the imaginative interpretation of inkblots could provide a basis for the diagnostic assessment of personality and psychological functioning.'

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1932

The book 'Winter Nights Entertainments' by R M Abraham, which was first published by Constable and Constable in London in 1932, contained a small section on 'Smudgeography'.

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