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Transdisciplinary approach to translation is generally accepted as a framework for contemporary Translation Studies. The paper claims that a wider recognition of the cognitive theory of language and the cognitive model of grammar can significantly enrich scholars’ views on the processes and products of translation, and literary translation in particular. Most promising seems the analogy between visual perception and its verbal reflexes, which linguists of cognitivist persuasion consider as fundamental in explaining grammatical phenomena. In the paper, the claim is substantiated with an analysis of extracts from John Fowles’ novel The Magus and its Polish translation. Using descriptive instruments offered by the cognitive theory of grammar, the author discusses a selection of discrepancies between the original text and its Polish translation, shows that they evoke differing images and thus, ultimately, distort the meaning of the original. She shows that literary narration consists of images evoked by verbal expressions of nonverbal pictures that are actually seen or recalled; verbal imagery manifests properties in many respects similar to those defined in contemporary theories of art, notably various types of iconicity. The domain of ekphrasis stretches beyond the limits imposed by traditional poetics. Ekphrastic expressions are inherently subjective and metonymic, and so are verbal construals as described by Cognitive Grammar, which proves to be sa pertinent analogy.