Cloud

The cloud has no fixed shape. Unlike the dragon it is not assigned a set form or position, and is generally used to fill what other motifs leave empty — which makes it the most sensitive register of a period’s compositional habits.

Early clouds are simple: an arc and a hook. By the Ming the motif has acquired a spiralling head, a pointed tail and a body joining the two. On Ming robes the stitches are short and dense, and the needle follows the turns of the design.

Early Qing clouds have somewhat larger heads, long slender bodies and a wide span. They are worked in long parallel horizontal stitches, with colour changes made through uneven staggered stitching — the two extremes of tone laid first, the transition filled afterwards.

One mid-Qianlong type has a long slender body with no tail and a head worked in several colours. The composition is fluent, the ground evenly reserved; in colour and execution it is the finest moment of the tradition.

Late Qing clouds are dense and formulaic, with many heads and short bodies, the palette narrowed largely to blue and green, and the earlier fluency lost. A further late type dispenses with body and tail altogether, pairing two semicircular heads; it appears from the Jiaqing reign but is not common.

As to stitch: clouds are almost always worked in parallel horizontal rows, the stitches becoming shorter and denser the later the date. The lighter outer colour is laid first and the darker inner colour worked into it with considerable overlap.