Overview
Ekphrasis is a rhetorical device defined as the written description of a work of art, either real or imagined. Since classical antiquity, ekphrasis has been used as a technique in poetry, but is frequently employed in other genres of literature as well. In addition to its descriptive qualities, in classical antiquity, ekphrasis was also used to evoke strong emotional responses in the reader, by using enargeia, or vivid language, and evidentia, or evidence, to prompt images in the reader's mind's eye. Ekphrastic writing also has scholarly value, and has recently become a common method in art history scholarship.