We describe a novel method for the measurement of spatially two-dimensional temporal amplitude correlation function of two coherent short light pulses with picosecond resolution in which the light pulses are recorded in a volume-holographic medium and the recorded information is read out by direct measurement of the spatial distribution of the grating formed in the medium. The feasibility of this method was experimentally proved by means of a photorefractive LiNbO3:Fe crystal and a 3.5-ps frequency-doubled mode-locked Nd:YAG laser. We measured the diffraction of a cw He–Ne laser by the grating formed in the crystal and calculated its envelope function by inversely solving coupled-wave equations.