The
term “emotive cloud” was coined by Joan Stanley Baker in her book,
Japanese Art, (Thames and Hudson. 1984), to describe “ the free-floating
cloud forms, where the pigment is sprinkled on.... The clouds seem to
breathe, and so seem charged with motion and emotion in the otherwise
still space. They function as emotional indicators, providing a quickening
and poignancy ” to the work. This is a painterly device observable in
Chinese painting only in the Sung period but in Japanese painting from the
eleventh century till the present. |