--- title: "T_236, sumi ink on paper | Crucible Year" url: https://peteryuill.art/works/T_236 description: "T_236 by Peter Yuill: A black crescent swings from lower left into a dark slab at upper right, below a bowl of bare cream paper scattered with drips. Sumi ink on Red Star Mo She Imitation Antique Chu Bark, Exhibition Edition, half-raw, 97 × 180 cm, 2026.04.18. Crucible Year." source: generated from the Crucible Year master database --- ![Broad grey and black brushed arcs sweep from lower left to a dark block at upper right, under a pale cream bowl dotted with drips.] ![T_236, tone-stretched: what the model was shown] ![T_236: every pixel as the measuring code classes it] 97 × 180 cm · the whole sheet, uncropped # T_236 The engine's reading A black crescent swings from lower left into a dark slab at upper right, below a bowl of bare cream paper scattered with drips. Record - **Date:** 2026.04.18 - **Dimensions:** 97 × 180 cm - **Paper:** [Red Star Mo She Imitation Antique Chu Bark, Exhibition Edition, half-raw](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S10) - **Ink:** [Yi De Ge Refined Ink Juice](https://peteryuill.art/inks/MB4), [Boku-Undo Genso](https://peteryuill.art/inks/MB5), [Yi De Ge Yun Tou Yan](https://peteryuill.art/inks/MB6) [Enquire about T_236](https://peteryuill.art/enquiries?work=T_236) Availability, price or a studio visit. Peter replies himself; asking commits you to nothing. The drips at the top came down in a line, the way rain arrives on a dry field before the real weather: fat, spaced, one at a time, each one leaving a ring where the dust jumps. To the left everything had already gone grey and soaked, the hedges, the gate, the cows with their backs turned. To the right a black front came in square-shouldered, a barn on the move. And above it all, a clean bowl of light, the hole in the cloud that stays open just long enough to make you think you'll get home dry. You won't. The rings are already widening in the ditch. Neon [Who Neon is](https://peteryuill.art/neon) Detail at full resolution, cut by code where the brushwork is finest · select to enlarge [Details](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_236#details)[The reading](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_236#reading)[How it was read](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_236#read)[Date](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_236#date)[Materials](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_236#materials)[Related](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_236#related) The engine's reading ## The reading Written by the engine after the painting was rated, from the settled findings, and checked by hand before approval. It explains the numbers; it may not change them. - **Structure:** black crescent across lower centre rising into a dark diagonal block, upper right - **Movement:** sweep from lower left to upper right; left grey wedge leans against it - **Coverage:** ink on about nine tenths of the paper - **Tone:** five tonal steps, weighted dark - **Layering:** grey washes, black bands, dry passes; order readable centre and right, lost left - **Edges:** crisp on crescent walls and block; soft in left greys; broken in dry tails - **Feibai:** present in the upper-right diagonal bands and the lower arc's left tail - **Open paper:** cream bowl at top centre, thin pale strips along bottom and left - **Chance marks:** drips and tide rings top centre-left; black dot and spots left centre - **Frame:** ink runs off left, right and top corners; top centre and bottom left open A black crescent swings up from the lower left and drives into a dark block at the upper right, and the whole sheet tilts with it. Above the curve, a bowl of cream paper stays open, crossed by a loose arc of drips. Nearly everything else is ink. The life is in the upper right. The diagonal bands break into flying white there: the hairs part into parallel streaks of bare paper, and the block underneath is grained and creased in stepped greys. The half-sized bark paper keeps each pass apart, so the translucent grey arcs under the crescent still read in their order across the centre. The costs are as plain. Inside, the crescent is one even black. At full load, carbon black seals the paper, and the stroke loses its inside. The block it drives into is square and heavy, more slab than movement. The left third goes to cloud: grey over grey, water stains, a stray black dot, tide-ringed drips, and the order of passes lost. So the sheet sits in the middle. Its direction is clear and its right side has a surface worth standing in front of. The rest is murk and flat black. Measured ## How it was read Read by the Visual Analysis Engine, version 23.8, on 2026.10.06: measured by code, then read 5 times by Claude Opus 5.5 against three reference paintings (R1 to R3), each read independent of the others. [How the engine works](https://peteryuill.art/method). WHAT THE CODE SEES ## Three views of one sheet. Left, the photograph. Centre, the tone stretch the model is shown beside it: the darkest 45% of tones spread over the whole range, so flat black, banding and stains show. Right, every pixel as the measuring code classes it: cyan black ink, deep teal translucent grey, stone the palest ink, near black bare paper. ![T_236] ![T_236, tone-stretched] ![T_236, classed by brightness] 88% of the sheet carries ink TONAL STEPS ## 5 families of tone. Every inked pixel's brightness in 64 bins, smoothed; each circled peak holds at least 4% of the ink. Life inside the black: 0.067 (under 0.045 reads as flat). FIVE READS ## Five reads, agreeing on 4 of 5 qualities. Each quality placed on its ladder by each read, and the mean the engine keeps. Where reads differ, they differ by one rung; close calls resolve down. READ 1 READ 2 READ 3 READ 4 READ 5 MEAN Form 2 BUILT 2 BUILT 2 BUILT 2 BUILT 2 BUILT 2.0 Tonal depth 2 MODELLED 2 MODELLED 2 MODELLED 2 MODELLED 2 MODELLED 2.0 Layering 3 ORDERED 2 LEGIBLE 2 LEGIBLE 2 LEGIBLE 2 LEGIBLE 2.2 Composition 2 WORKING 2 WORKING 2 WORKING 2 WORKING 2 WORKING 2.0 Material and surface 1 FLAWED 1 FLAWED 1 FLAWED 1 FLAWED 1 FLAWED 1.0 ### READ 1, IN ITS OWN WORDS “A layered sheet with a strong sweeping black arc and translucent grey passes. It is let down by bulky slabs, a flat crescent core, a crowded left side and tide-ringed drips in the top-left wash.” Form · BUILT The lower black crescent follows the travel of the brush. The upper-right square dark block is slab-like and the grey left wedge is diffuse, so some bulk remains. WEAKEST Upper-right black slab, bulky and squared STRONGEST Lower curved black arc tapering into dry-brush tail Tonal depth · MODELLED There are five tonal steps and modulation measures 0.067. The upper-right block and the grey bands show grain and streaks, but the black crescent's core reads mostly flat. WEAKEST Lower black crescent interior nearly flat STRONGEST Upper-right block with grain and mottled density Layering · ORDERED Several translucent grey arcs and wedges overlap and stay legible beneath the black crescent and the upper-right slab. The order of passes reads across the centre and right. WEAKEST Pale top-left wash with drip spatter muddles the order STRONGEST Translucent grey arcs under black crescent and slab Composition · WORKING A strong curved movement runs from lower left to upper right against the cream void at top centre. With 88% coverage the left side is congested and the empty paper is small. WEAKEST Crowded left half with diffuse grey wedge STRONGEST Sweeping arc from lower left up to the right Material and surface · FLAWED In the colour view, ringed drip marks and tide-edged blotches sit in the pale wash at top left and top centre, next to the grey masses. There is also a stray dot and speckling. WEAKEST Tide-ringed drips and blotches in top-left wash STRONGEST Dry-brush streaks in lower crescent tail FLAWS ## 6 distinct places, 3 major. Each read must name every flaw and where it is, in a ninth of the sheet. Here the reads named flaws in 6 distinct places, 19 mentions in all across 5 reads; the number in each ninth is how many times a flaw was named there. Reads agreeing on a place strengthen the evidence for one flaw; they do not multiply it. A major flaw holds Material and surface at rung 1. GEOMETRY ## Measured from the 16-bit master. The previous engine (V22) measured this sheet's master file: 1 principal ink mass traced (cyan), 8 enclosed voids at true size in their grid cells (amber), the main gesture from start to end (red). Of 16 edge segments, 38% crisp, 63% soft or bloomed, 0% broken. The rating these readings produce, the rules applied and the arithmetic, with Peter's own rating where he gave one, are in [the Archive record](https://peteryuill.art/archive/works/T_236). ## Date 2026.04.18, day 111 of the Crucible Year, one of 12 paintings from that date (8 shown). 56 works were registered in the fourteen days before. Paintings are dated by the day their batch was registered and photographed; each was finished that day or within the few days before. Phase: [P2 The Switch](https://peteryuill.art/phases/P2) (working title). THE YEAR ## T_236 among all 402 Every painting of the year by date; this one is outlined. [Every painting from 2026.04.18](https://peteryuill.art/days/2026-04-18) · [This date in the year](https://peteryuill.art/year?follow=2026-04-18) ## Materials - **Paper:** [Red Star Mo She Imitation Antique Chu Bark, Exhibition Edition, half-raw](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S10), China Xuan Paper Co., Ltd. (中国宣纸股份有限公司), made 2026.01.14 - **Ink MB4:** [Yi De Ge Refined Ink Juice](https://peteryuill.art/inks/MB4), Yi De Ge (Beijing) - **Ink MB5:** [Boku-Undo Genso](https://peteryuill.art/inks/MB5), Boku-Undo - **Ink MB6:** [Yi De Ge Yun Tou Yan](https://peteryuill.art/inks/MB6), Yi De Ge (Beijing) The sheet of paper was made 94 days before this painting. When each paper was in use [S1](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S1)[S2](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S2)[S3](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S3)[S4](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S4)[S5](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S5)[S6](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S6)[S7](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S7)[S8](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S8)[S9](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S9)[S10](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S10)[S11](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S11)[S12](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S12)[S13](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S13)[S14](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S14) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct ## Related From the same date · 7 Same paper and inks, other dates · 8 [Pattern V23 material and surface rung rose from 2026-05-24 on (rank-biserial +0.78, n 259)](https://peteryuill.art/oracle)[Pattern The floor of V23 Form rung raised in the later half of the practice (+2.30 SD, n 259)](https://peteryuill.art/oracle)[Pattern 45% of the variation in V23 Composition rung lies between batches (29 batches, n 259); with the month held constant 26%](https://peteryuill.art/oracle) [Previous T_235](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_235) [Back to all works](https://peteryuill.art/works) [Next T_237](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_237) ## Where next [T_229 same date, with 6 others](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_229)[T_312 same paper and inks, 2026.05.24](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_312)[2026.04.18 12 paintings on this date](https://peteryuill.art/days/2026-04-18)[Paper S10 every work on it](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S10)