depictio

Depictio is a Latin noun meaning depiction, portrayal, or description. In rhetoric and literary writing, depictio refers to the technique of presenting a scene, action, or character in vivid, detailed language designed to evoke a clear mental image in the audience.

In practice, depictio relies on concrete sensory detail, careful arrangement of spatial and temporal elements, and deliberate pacing to create immediacy and affect. It can serve to set a scene, advance a narrative, or persuade by making events feel tangible. The device is closely related to hypotyposis, the classical notion of a vivid, almost cinematic representation of a moment or scene; many rhetoricians regard depictio as overlapping with or subsumed under such visualization techniques.

Historical and scholarly context positions depictio within Latin rhetorical theory and medieval glossaries as a descriptive technique. It is not always treated as a distinct formal figure in every taxonomy, but it overlaps with related concepts such as descriptio and imagines in practice. The term thus functions both as a general description of vivid writing and as a label for specific descriptive strategies used to transport readers or listeners into a depicted world.

In modern literary and discourse studies, depictio is discussed as part of description and scene-building in narrative and persuasive texts. Related terms include descriptio and hypotyposis, which together illuminate how language can render sensory experience and movement within a portrayed reality.