Abstract. In a variety of applications it is important to extract information from a probability measure μ on an infinite dimensional space. Examples include the Bayesian approach to inverse problems and (possibly conditioned) continuous time Markov processes. It may then be of interest to find a measure ν, from within a simple class of measures, which approximates μ. This problem is studied in the case where the Kullback-Leibler divergence is employed to measure the quality of the approximation. A calculus of variations viewpoint is adopted, and the particular case where ν is chosen from the set of Gaussian measures is studied in detail. Basic existence and uniqueness theorems are established, together with properties of minimizing sequences. Furthermore, parameterization of the class of Gaussians through the mean and inverse covariance is introduced, the need for regularization is explained, and a regularized minimization is studied in detail. The calculus of variations framework resulting from this work provides the appropriate underpinning for computational algorithms. 1. Introduction. This paper is concerned with the problem of minimizing the Kullback-Leibler divergence between a pair of probability measures, viewed as a problem in the calculus of variations. We are given a measure μ, specified by its RadonNikodym derivative with respect to a reference measure μ 0 , and we find the closest element ν from a simpler set of probability measures. After an initial study of the problem in this abstract context, we specify to the situation where the reference measure μ 0 is Gaussian and the approximating set comprises Gaussians. It is necessarily the case that minimizers ν are then equivalent as measures to μ 0 , 1 and we use the Feldman-Hajek theorem to characterize such ν in terms of their inverse covariance operators. This induces a natural formulation of the problem as minimization over the mean, from the Cameron-Martin space of μ 0 , and over an operator from a weighted Hilbert-Schmidt space. We investigate this problem from the point of view of the calculus of variations, studying properties of minimizing sequences, regularization to improve the space in which operator convergence is obtained, and uniqueness under a slight strengthening of a log-convex assumption on the measure μ.In the situation where the minimization is over a convex set of measures ν, the problem is classical and completely understood [10]; in particular, there is uniqueness