John Ruskin (1819-1900) English author and art critic and one of the major figures of the Victorian age, for over fifty years of his life wrote consistently and persistently on art,architectureand society .The man who has been credited for bringing the 'hoi polloi' closer to art. He would embrace and develop Pugin's ideas that 'the buildings and art of a people are the expression of their religion, their morality and social habits' and supported that art should be perceived within its social and political context and not separate form it. Ruskin essentially preached that the built environment of a society is a direct result of that societie's zeitgeist.The book also contains the seminal The Stones of Venice.