The article is devoted to the analysis of ekphrasis in the work of Victorian art critic and writer Walter Pater. His understanding of aesthetic experience as realised in history is interpreted by approaching his last book «Plato and Platonism». As the author shows Pater’s notions of «spiritual form» and «imaginary reason» gives an opportunity to define the specificity of his view of the works of visual art, of the role of artist and art critic. As an example of Pater’s ekphrasis his interpretation of Raphael is being studied in the essay which was not included into Pater’s classical «Renaissance» but was published posthumously in «Miscellaneous Studies» (1895). In his aeshetics Pater logically comes to the strengthening of the role of visual experience as an experience which do not require open categorization, as an experience of «silent» sensual fullness.