created 2025-04-17, & modified, =this.modified
Ekphrasis is a rhetorical device indicating the written description of a work of art. It comes from Greek - out + speak + to proclaim an object by name.
An early example of ekphrasis comes in Plato’s Phaedrus, where Socrates is discussing writing and painting with Phaedrus, in a lovely spot by a plane tree outside the city. His speech, praising the tree and its location goes in great detail—describing the tree’s size, the shade it gives, the blossoms, a nearby spring, etc., and is indeed considered over the top by Phaedrus.
“You know, Phaedrus, that is the strange thing about writing, which makes it truly correspond to painting. The painter’s products stand before us as though they were alive, but if you question them, they maintain a most majestic silence. It is the same with written words; they seem to talk to you as if they were intelligent, but if you ask them anything about what they say, from a desire to be instructed, they go on telling you just the same thing forever”
Since the types of objects described in classical ekphrases often lack survivors to modern times, art historians have often been tempted to use descriptions in literature as sources for the appearance of actual Greek or Roman art, an approach full of risk. This is because ekphrasis typically contains an element of competition with the art it describes, aiming to demonstrate the superior ability of words to “paint a picture”. Many subjects of ekphrasis are clearly imaginary, for example those of the epics, but with others it remains uncertain the extent to which they were, or were expected to be by early audiences, at all accurate.