He then started on the last tour abroad with his parents. He had been asked, rather pointedly, by the National Gallery Commission, whether he had seen the great German museums, and had been obliged to reply that he had not. Perhaps it occurred to him or to his father that he ought to see the pictures at Berlin and Dresden and Munich, even though he heartily disliked the Germans with their art and their language and everything that belonged to them,--except Holbein and Dürer. By the end of July the travellers were in North Switzerland; and they spent September in Savoy, returning home by October 7th. Old Mr. Ruskin was now in his seventy-fifth year and his desire was to see the great work finished before he died. There had been some attempt to write this last volume of "Modern Painters" in the previous winter, but it had been put off until after the visit to Germany had completed a study of the great Venetian painters--especially Titian and Veronese. Now at last, in the autumn of 1859, he finally set to work on the writing. The assertion of Turner's genius had been necessary in 1843, but Turner was long since dead; his fame was thoroughly vindicated; his bequest to the nation dealt with, so far as possible. Early Christian Art was recognised--almost beyond its claims. The Pre-Raphaelites and naturalistic landscapists no longer needed the hand which "Modern Painters" had held out to them by the way. Of the great triad of Venice, Tintoret had been expounded, Veronese and Titian were now taken up and treated with tardy, but ample recognition. And now, after twenty years of labour, Ruskin had established himself as the recognised leader of criticism and the exponent of painting and architecture. He had created a department of literature all his own. He had enriched the art of England with examples of a new and beautiful draughtsmanship, and the language with passages of poetic description and eloquent declamation, quite, in their way, unrivalled. He had built up a theory of art, so far uncontested; and thrown new light on the Middle Ages and Renaissance, illustrating, in a way then novel, their chronicles by their remains. He had beaten down opposition, risen above detraction, and won the prize of honour--only to realise, as he received it, that the fight had been but a pastime tournament, after all; and to hear, through the applause, the enemy's trumpet sounding to battle. For now, without the camp, there were realities to face; as to Art--"the best in this kind are but shadows." BOOK III HERMIT AND HERETIC (1860-1870) CHAPTER I "UNTO THIS LAST" (1860-1861) At forty years of age Ruskin finished "Modern Painters." From that time art was sometimes his text, rarely his theme. He used it as the opportunity, the vehicle, so to say, for teachings of wider range and deeper import; teachings about life as a whole, conclusions in ethics and economics and religion, to which he sought to lead others, as he was led, by the way of art.