It is strange that the great sea-pieces we have mentioned were not exhibited (except perhaps that at Petworth), but the occupation of his time by these magnificent works of emulation accounts for his doing so little for the engravers in these years, for they were all probably, except the _Wreck of the Minotaur_, painted before 1807, when he turned his attention to his greatest, and perhaps most successful work of the kind, the “Liber Studiorum.” And here we may remark, that emulation with Turner, though it may have been a mark of jealousy, was always a token of respect. Feelings crossed each other in Turner’s mind as colours did in his works; it is often difficult to know whether his feeling is to be called noble or base, and the same complexity may be noticed in his “artistic” motives. When imitating other masters he brought his knowledge of nature to bear strongly on his work to make it more natural; when painting a natural scene, he employed all his traditional study to make it more “artistic.”
By this time, however, he had learnt nearly all that was to be learnt from art, ancient or modern, in the landscape way, but it was different with nature. That was a book which he could not exhaust, though he was never tired of turning over fresh pages. It was almost his only book, and he began a new chapter about 1801 or 1802, when he made his first tour on the Continent. Previous to this he must have paid a visit to Scotland, for the Exhibition of 1802 contained three Scotch views, one of which was the _Kilchurn_ already mentioned. In 1803 he exhibited no less than six foreign subjects, of which one was the _Calais Pier_, now in the National Gallery, another the _Festival upon the opening of the Vintage of Macon_, in the possession of Lord Yarborough; the others were _Bonneville, Savoy, with Mont Blanc_; _Chateaux de Michael, Bonneville, Savoy_; _St. Hugh denouncing vengeance on the Shepherd of Courmayeur in the Valley of d’Aoust_; and _Glacier and Source of the Arvèron going up to the Mer de Glace, in the Valley of the Chamouni_.[22] After this burst of foreign subjects he did not exhibit another scene from abroad for twelve years, except the _Fall of the Rhine at Schaffhausen_ (1806), and content this time with simpler, safer, English, a _View of the Castle of St. Michael, near Bonneville, Savoy_ (1812). During the next few years the most important picture, and one of the most beautiful he ever painted, was the famous _Sun Rising through vapour: Fishermen cleaning and selling Fish_, exchanged with Sir J. F. Leicester for _The Shipwreck_, and now in the National Gallery, together with _The Shipwreck_ and _Spithead: Boat’s Crew recovering an Anchor_, another fine picture of the Vandevelde class.