there are people practising it. It is difficult to come by a more stable definition than the activity being related to the discussion and interpretation of art and its value. Depending on who is writing on the subject, "art criticism" itself may be obviated as a direct goal or it may include art history within its framework. Regardless of definitional problems, art criticism can refer to the history of the craft in its essays and art history itself may use critical methods implicitly. According to art historian R. Siva Kumar, "The borders between art history and art criticism... are no more as firmly drawn as they once used to be. It perhaps began with art historians taking interest in modern art." Methodology Art criticism includes a descriptive aspect, where the work of art is sufficiently translated into words so as to allow a case to be made. The evaluation of a work of art that follows the description (or is interspersed with it) depends as much on the artist's output as on the experience of the critic. There is in an activity with such a marked subjective component a variety of ways in which it can be pursued. As extremes in a possible spectrum, while some favour simply remarking on the immediate impressions caused by an artistic object, others prefer a more systematic approach calling on technical knowledge, favoured aesthetic theory and the known sociocultural context the artist is immersed in to discern their intent. History Critiques of art likely originated with the origins of art itself, as evidenced by texts found in the works of Plato, Vitruvius or Augustine of Hippo among others, that contain early forms of art criticism. Also, wealthy patrons have employed, at least since the start of Renaissance, intermediary art-evaluators to assist them in the procurement of commissions and/or finished pieces. Origins Art criticism as a genre of writing, obtained its modern form in the 18th century. The earliest use of the term art criticism was by the English painter Jonathan Richardson in his 1719 publication An Essay on the Whole Art of Criticism. In this work, he attempted to create an objective system for the ranking of works of art. Seven categories, including drawing, composition, invention and colouring, were given a score from 0 to 18, which were combined to give a final score. The term he introduced quickly caught on, especially as the