76 AN ANGLER AT LARGE 



Blue Person is not an artist at all. He is a 

 canvas-stretcher just as the Rain Man is a maker 

 of cloud in bulk for the Cloud Artist's use. So 

 when the master is not in the studio, and the 

 Rain Man is playing hookey, the Blue Person has 

 it all his own way. If the Cloud Artist has an 

 inspiration, then the Blue Person steps aside and 

 we have pictures. Or perhaps the Rain Man 

 comes rushing in and throws great lumps of his 

 manufactures all over the Blue Person's pretty 

 canvas, and then we put on mackintoshes. 



A hill-top is the best stance for looking at the 

 Cloud Artist's work. It is impossible to see too 

 large an area of it. No one can paint in small 

 compass better than he, and I have often framed 

 a marvellous little six-foot-by-five with my bed- 

 room window. But to see him as he should be 

 seen one wants the whole vault of heaven. Then 

 the fellow's infinite variety becomes properly 

 apparent. I never can decide in which vein I 

 prefer him. When he is doing his big bold work 

 with his great masses of cumulus, flinging them 

 all day exuberantly across the blue, tearing conti- 

 nents of cloud to pieces and sending them swim- 

 ming, he is at his liveliest and strongest. Then, 

 too, he indulges his undoubted gift of humour. 

 He becomes Rabelaisian, scolloping his edges into 

 pompous, mile-long Bourbon faces, all chins, or 



