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.