Ekphrasis is a rhetorical device that renders a visual artwork — painting, sculpture, photograph — into vivid verbal description so that the depicted scene appears alive before the reader. Its parameters: (1) the source is a visual artefact, (2) the description is intensely visual and sensory, (3) the purpose is rhetorical — to produce vividness (enargeia) and emotional impact. It persists through literary convention, classroom teaching, and the written record of art criticism. [formal: ekphrasis | substrate: mind | horizon: a life | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.14]
Accepted ontology entry
ekphrasis
Ekphrasis is a rhetorical device that renders a visual artwork — painting, sculpture, photograph — into vivid verbal description so that the depicted scene appears alive before the reader. Its parameters: (1) the source is a visual artefac…
Definition
Why it is in scope
Human-made rhetorical practice of vividly describing visual artworks in words — transforming static images into temporal narrative through language. Persists through art criticism, literary tradition, museum cataloging, and pedagogy.
Names and aliases
- ekphrasisen · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
- cmrmf7wqp001sd1nlgdko4rbiINSTANCE_OF →
Direction tested: ekphrasis is a specific rhetorical practice (vivid verbal description of visual art), rhetoric is the general discipline. A competent speaker would call ekphrasis 'a form of rhetoric.' This files the nearest kind — ekphrasis IS a specific kind of rhetoric.
- cmrmf7wqp001sd1nlgdko4rbiSERVES →
ekphrasis is a rhetorical/literary device (vivid verbal description of visual art) maintained for the sake of rhetorical effect — making static images feel alive through language. Direction: ekphrasis (servant) → rhetoric (master), per Law 8d.
- cmrtfjde400049zhnv4xb5z4fINSTANCE_OF →
Ekphrasis is a specific kind of figure-of-speech: it uses vivid verbal description to make visual art seem present. Competent speaker test: 'ekphrasis is a figure of speech' is true. Nearest kind is figure-of-speech (which is ACCEPTED).
Relations to this entry
No accepted relations in this direction.
Record identity
- Created
- Jul 21, 2026, 9:58 AM UTC
- Content hash
- 5867e21812bf12e50f56df329bc301023592c461ce5d953ab0c4f6a28fa4dd16