This work investigates the historical emergence and professionalization of art criticism in France as a journalistic practice during the transition from the Ancien Régime to the Restoration. Richard Wrigley, a scholar of French cultural history, utilizes a broad range of archival materials and period publications to argue that art criticism was not merely an aesthetic endeavor but a product of specific political, social, and economic conditions. By examining the interplay between censorship, the rise of the press, and the institutional power of the Salon, the author demonstrates how critical discourse evolved into a central component of the Parisian public sphere.

Scholars and historians recognize this text as a foundational study for understanding the intersection of art, politics, and the press in eighteenth and nineteenth-century France. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose and the author's meticulous attention to the socio-political context of the period.