In Modern Painters I, Ruskin presented Rubens as the chief exception to his general dislike of Dutch and Flemish painters. Instead he placed him within the more positive tradition of a select group of international old masters (of whom Titian is relevant as a comparable colourist). It is this tradition to which Turner is compared, integrated into and shown to surpass. Rubens is introduced with particular frequency in order to establish Turner's relation to and independence from artistic tradition. As a result his role is ambivalent. At best, Ruskin stated that 'I will never speak of Rubens but with the most reverential feeling'; at worst, he perceived the artist's work to contain 'violent license' and 'bold absurdity' ( MP I:162). In praising his strong colour and his innovative use of naturalism, he sometimes treated Rubens as a proto-Turner among landscape painters. But elsewhere he criticised his too manifest skill and powerful execution. In his later writings, Ruskin emphasised these criticisms by concentrating less on Rubens' landscapes than on the 'pure animalism' of his figure subjects (see especially Works, 7.326-342). In so doing, he brought his characterisation of Rubens in line with those of other Dutch and Flemish painters, and so disassociated himself from the established critical reception of Rubens.