The ambivalence of Ruskin 's approach to Titian goes even deeper in his later works than it does in Modern Painters I. Titian is taken as the 'consummation of the mighty spirit of Venetian colour' at Works, 10.64, though at Works, 10.177 the story is rather different. There Venice 's glory would have been consummated in Titian and Tintoretto if Venice had not 'already ceased to lead her sons in the way of truth and life'. The loss of 'vital religion' in Venice meant that Titian's 'larger sacred subjects are merely themes for the exhibition of rhetoric, - composition and colour', and there is 'absolute subordination of the religious subject to purposes of decoration or portraiture'. The mind of Tintoretto is 'incomparably more deep and serious' ( Works, 9.31 and Works, 9.32). For Ruskin in 1872 ( Works, 22.331): Titian - along with Vandyke, Gainsborough, Reynolds and Velasquez - is essentially a portrait painter (even when not painting portraits of people): they 'give you the likeness of a man; they have nothing to say either about his future life or his gods!' They were offering the 'colore' of rhetoric and superficial appearance which characterized the Venetian painters rather than the truth which is grasped by 'disegno', the expression of the form in the artist's mind.
On the other hand for Ruskin, Titian was the 'greatest painter who ever lived' and 'all that you learn from Titian will be right'( Works, 16.134). Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto were Venetian who 'were able finally to paint the highest visible work of God with unexaggerated structure, undegraded colour, and unaffected gesture ( Works, 16.198). Titian is incapable of any 'morbid tremor, or falsehood, or self-consciousness' and has an' utter, easy, and unreprovable mastery of his business'. Although ( Works, 15.31) Titian's clouds and Tintoretto's clouds are conventional, even Turner could not paint a cluster of leaves better than Titian ( Works, 7.56).