Marcel Proust’s critical essays on art—compiled by the author himself into the volume *In Memory of Destroyed Churches*—serve largely as a response to the theories of John Ruskin, whose writings Proust translated into French. Proust devotes considerable attention to the functions of the museum, the observation of art, the concept of the "sight" or landmark, and other related topics. These works offer a detailed and profound exposition of the aesthetic views that would later find expression in his novel cycle *In Search of Lost Time*.

The collection is supplemented by a translation of the essay "Rembrandt."