But perhaps that conclusion of Ruskin’s, in the new volume, which will most interest his earnest readers, is that the Venetian school is the only religious school that has ever existed.  So much has Ruskin’s development seemed to contradict itself, that one is scarcely surprised at one conclusion being apparently opposed to the former one; but a change so great as this, from Giotto, Perugino, and Cima, to Tintoret, Titian, and Veronese, as the religious ideals, will, indeed, amaze all who read it.  Yet this is but the logical consequence of his progression hitherto.  If he commenced with a belief that asceticism was religion, he would recognize Perugino and Giotto as the true religious artists; but if, as seems to be the case, he has learned at last that religion is a thing of daily life, mingling in all that we do, caring for body as well as soul, sense as well as spirit, and that a complete man must be a man who lives in every sense of the word, then the Venetians, as the painters of the truth of life in all its joy and sorrow, are the true painters, and the only ones whose art was inhabited by a religion worth following.

It is interesting to follow what are called Ruskin’s contradictions and see how perfectly they represent the whole system of artistic truth, as seen from the different points of a young artist’s or student’s growth up to mature and ripened judgment; so that there is no stage of artistic development which has not some form of truth particularly adapted to it, in the “Modern Painters.”  If it be urged that the book should have been written only from the point of final development, it can only be said that no true book will ever he so written, for no man can ever be certain of his having attained final truth.  “Modern Painters” has value in this very showing of the critical development, which to an intelligent student is greater than that a complete and infallible guide could have.

The chapter on Invention is full of the most delightful artistic truth, and shows completely, by copious illustrations, how well Turner deserved the rank Ruskin gives him amongst great composers.  The analyses of the compositions of Turner are most curious and interesting, but, of course, depend on the accompanying plates.  Some most valuable mental philosophy bearing on the production of art-works concludes Part VIII., which is devoted to “Invention Formal,” of which we quote the concluding paragraphs:—­

“Until the feelings can give strength enough to the will to enable it to conquer them, they are not strong enough.  If you cannot leave your picture at any moment, cannot turn from it and go on with another while the color is drying, cannot work at any part of it you choose with equal contentment, you have not firm enough grasp of it.