ekphrasis

Vivid literary description of a work of art, a popular rhetorical exercise in late Antiquity. Several were written by the Greek writer Lucian. These, in particular his descriptions of Apelles' Calumny and Zeuxis' Centaur Family, were influential in the Renaissance as the only surviving evidence of ancient paintings. On the basis of these descriptions, artists such as Botticelli, Mantegna, and Albrecht Dürer tried to recreate the works of art.