Abstract: The article explores the different strategies of appeal to direct visual experience which become the subject of comparative research. Their role in Old Russian literature is diverse. They can be aimed at recreating the situation in all its ontological objectivity. This we see in the Walking of Abbot Daniel, who skillfully combined the restraint of ecphrasis and the emotionality of the stories of miracles. Shrines for him belong to the material world and at the same time are the vehicles of the supersensible. The visual in the Sermon of the Tver scribe monk Thomas appears, first of all, as a reference to direct experience, as a metaphor for authenticity, but at the same time in the praise itself there are practically no descriptions. The text of Thomas is marked by an abstract rhetorical character. Eye contact with the subject of panegyric for him — only reception suggestion. Memories of what he saw serve for the writer and preacher of the 17th century, Archpriest Habakkuk, the impetus for the sermon, which receives a deeply personal sound.

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