The reader of an artistic description (ecphrasis) is subjected to a constant oscillation between the text and the image. Using various examples, the present study examines the insights which medieval literary works open up to their readers by continually inserting descriptions of pictures and architecture into the linear flow of narrative texts. Wandhoff attempts to reconstruct a history of ecphrasis, which extends from the epics of antiquity to the post-classic courtly romance at the end of the 13th century. The argumentation is led by three principal concepts - the analysis of literary descriptions as memorial pictures, as reflections of the visual in the verbal or the macro-narrative in the micro-narrative, or as a virtual display.