How to Describe a Painting - Philostratus and Art Criticism in the Graeco-Roman World

Philostratus' Imagines is unsurpassed as one of the western tradition's most creatively original, scintillating and self-reflexive works of art criticism. This book examines it in the literary, artistic and rhetorical contexts of the 'Second Sophistic', and shows the urgent relevance of its educational project in our own dawning digital age.