 Diderot’s art criticism joined with his theater criticism, his prose and other theoretical writings in offering readers reflections on deep metaphysical and epistemological questions concerning the power and limits of representation. From this perspective, it is appropriate that arguably Diderot’s greatest and most influential text is at once a literary fiction, a semi-autobiographical psychological memoir, a theatrical send-up of Parisian society, an intimate portrait of contemporary social mores, and a highly original and complex study of the nature of human perception, being, and their interrelation.