Ekphrasis

   A poetic, written description of a work of art. This literary genre, first introduced in late antiquity, gained great momentum during the Renaissance. Not only did it flourish once again as a literary medium, but patrons often commissioned works of art that recreated the descriptions provided by the ancients. Raphael's Galatea in the Villa Farnesina, Rome (1513), depends on an ekphrasis authored by Philostratus the Elder, and Sodoma's Marriage of Alexander and Roxana in the same location (1516-1519) owes its visual components to Lucian's description of a painting by the ancient master Apelles commissioned by Alexander the Great. Another ekphrasis written by Lucian provided the prototype for Sandro Botticelli's Calumny of Apelles (1495; Florence, Uffizi), the earliest Renaissance painting to recreate an ekphrasis from antiquity. Titian's Worship of Venus (1518; Madrid, Prado) depends on Philostratus the Younger's description, and his Bacchus and Ariadne (1520-1522; London, National Gallery) is based on an ekphrasis by Catullus that describes a bedspread created for the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. Among the Renaissance writers who delved in the genre are the poet Angelo Poliziano, who wrote an ekphrasis on the reliefs cast by Vulcan for the doors of his consort's temple that provided the inspiration for Botticelli's Birth of Venus (c. 1485; Florence, Uffizi), and the humanist Mario Equicola, who wrote the ekphrasis that Giovanni Bellini used for his Feast of the Gods (1514; Washington, National Gallery). Emulating the past, or perhaps even recreating it, was meant to bring prestige to writers, patrons, and artists for the erudition they demonstrated.