This collection examines the development of art criticism across Russia and Western Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Art criticism articulated local ideas about functions of art but more importantly it also became one of the most responsive fields in which a larger transnational European exchange of ideas about the role of critical discourse could take place. Art criticism of this period was also rich in rhetorical strategies and textual diversity. International contributors to this volume who include art historians cultural historians and specialists in critical and philosophical discourse examine the emergence of art critical discourse in a variety of cultural and geopolitical contexts.