- Part unconventional biography, part travelogue tracing the profound influence on how we look, live, work and think of Victorian critic, artist, activist and environmentalist John Ruskin The Ruskin Society Book of The Year. Who was John Ruskin? What did he achieve - and how? Where is he today? One possible answer: almost everywhere. John Ruskin was the Victorian age's best-known and most controversial intellectual. He was an art critic,...