--- title: "T_321, sumi ink on paper | Crucible Year" url: https://peteryuill.art/works/T_321 description: "T_321 by Peter Yuill: A wheel of dry-brushed ink bands curls around a small white arch at right, facing three blunt marks and a spray of spatter across open paper. Sumi ink on Red Star Mo She Special Effect Xieyi Edition, raw, 97 × 180 cm, 2026.05.31. Crucible Year." source: generated from the Crucible Year master database --- ![Large dark concentric arcs at right around a small white arch; at left, a dark block, a grey column and a spattered blot.] ![T_321, tone-stretched: what the model was shown] ![T_321: every pixel as the measuring code classes it] 97 × 180 cm · the whole sheet, uncropped # T_321 The engine's reading A wheel of dry-brushed ink bands curls around a small white arch at right, facing three blunt marks and a spray of spatter across open paper. Record - **Date:** 2026.05.31 - **Dimensions:** 97 × 180 cm - **Paper:** [Red Star Mo She Special Effect Xieyi Edition, raw](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S11) - **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_321](https://peteryuill.art/enquiries?work=T_321) Availability, price or a studio visit. Peter replies himself; asking commits you to nothing. The white arch under the great curve is the underside of a bridge, and I know who lives under a bridge. Asbjørnsen and Moe wrote him down in Norway: a troll with eyes as big as saucers, listening for the trip, trap of hooves overhead. On the left the goats are sorting out the order. The little one is that spattered knot, all bristle and nerves. The middle one stands square and dark and says nothing. The biggest is the grey one in front, freckled, patient, who has read the story. Black drops have come up over the parapet at the top of the arch, which is the troll looking. Past the bridge is the hillside where, the tale says, they got so fat they could scarcely walk home. 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_321#details)[The reading](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_321#reading)[How it was read](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_321#read)[Date](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_321#date)[Materials](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_321#materials)[Related](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_321#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:** concentric arc mass at right; three separate marks at left, unjoined - **Movement:** arcs sweep round the opening and face left; left marks stand upright against them - **Coverage:** ink on about three fifths of the paper - **Tone:** three tonal steps, spread across the range - **Layering:** translucent grey passes under dark ones; readable in the arcs only - **Edges:** crisp brushed ends on the arcs; soft bleeding at far left; feathered grey column - **Feibai:** present in the upper arc band and along the outer arcs' left side - **Open paper:** small white arch inside the wheel; wide open upper left and centre - **Chance marks:** spatter and ringed drops at left; grey bloom below slab; pale stain at arcs' edge - **Frame:** ink runs off the right and bottom edges; top and left stay open A great wheel of brushed bands rises from the bottom edge at right and leaves the side of the sheet, curled around a small white arch. Across open paper, three blunt marks and a spray of spatter stand facing it. The wheel is where the sheet lives. Raw bark paper gripped the drying brush so hard that each sweep combed grain along its curve, with streaks of bare paper flying through the upper band. Pale grey passes stay visible under darker ones, so the order of making reads from the rim in to the black ring around the opening. The left side does not answer. The slab at left-centre is a stiff rectangle, nearly even inside. The grey column and the far-left knot are single passes with nothing beneath. This paper drinks fast, and loaded strokes spread and flatten. They sit as islands in leftover paper. Fine creases cross the arc darks, and the wheel absorbs them. Where that leaves it: good, reliable work, with one passage of real quality and a left side that keeps the whole from rising to meet it. 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_321] ![T_321, tone-stretched] ![T_321, classed by brightness] 62% of the sheet carries ink TONAL STEPS ## 3 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: 0.062 (under 0.045 reads as flat). FIVE READS ## Five reads, agreeing on 3 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 3 DEEP 2 MODELLED 2 MODELLED 2 MODELLED 2.2 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 2 SOUND 2 SOUND 2 SOUND 2 SOUND 2 SOUND 2.0 ### READ 1, IN ITS OWN WORDS “A strong layered arc on the right echoes R3. It is weakened by stiff, scattered marks on the left, a flat dark block, minor creases and a cloudy patch beside the arc.” Form · BUILT Right arcs follow the brush's travel fluently. Left-centre dark block is a blunt slab, and the far-left splash knot is lumpy; the walls hold but some marks are stiff. WEAKEST Stiff dark rectangular slab, left-centre STRONGEST Concentric arc bands sweeping around the right opening Tonal depth · MODELLED Arc interiors show banding, grain and graded density, with modulation 0.062. The dark rectangle and left knot have little internal variation, and tonal steps are only 3. WEAKEST Dark left-centre block nearly flat inside STRONGEST Arc bands with dry-brush grain and stepped greys Layering · ORDERED Successive arcs overlap translucently. Grey outer bands sit under the darker inner and top-right passes, so the order can be read and builds depth across the right half. WEAKEST Left marks are essentially single passes STRONGEST Overlapping translucent arc passes in the right mass Composition · WORKING The arc mass commands the right and leads inward. The left blocks and spatter feel scattered and weakly tied to it, and the upper-left paper reads partly as leftover. WEAKEST Scattered left cluster and empty top-left paper STRONGEST Arc spiral drawing the eye to the white opening Material and surface · SOUND Dry-brush grain is well used in the arcs. Fine crease or crack lines cross the dark arcs, and a pale grey cloudy patch sits at the arc's left edge, mid-height. WEAKEST Crease lines and pale cloud beside arc STRONGEST Dry-brush grain in the arc bands FLAWS ## 5 distinct places, 0 major. Each read must name every flaw and where it is, in a ninth of the sheet. Here the reads named flaws in 5 distinct places, 13 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. GEOMETRY ## Measured from the 16-bit master. The previous engine (V22) measured this sheet's master file: 6 principal ink masses traced (cyan), 2 enclosed voids at true size in their grid cells (amber), the main gesture from start to end (red). Of 25 edge segments, 52% crisp, 12% soft or bloomed, 36% 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_321). ## Date 2026.05.31, day 154 of the Crucible Year, one of 8 paintings from that date (6 shown). 10 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: [P3 The Floor Rises](https://peteryuill.art/phases/P3) (working title). Made after a calmer fortnight than 14 of the 14 dates before it. THE YEAR ## T_321 among all 402 Every painting of the year by date; this one is outlined. [Every painting from 2026.05.31](https://peteryuill.art/days/2026-05-31) · [This date in the year](https://peteryuill.art/year?follow=2026-05-31) ## Materials - **Paper:** [Red Star Mo She Special Effect Xieyi Edition, raw](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S11), China Xuan Paper Co., Ltd., made 2025.12.08 - **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 174 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 · 5 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_320](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_320) [Back to all works](https://peteryuill.art/works) [Next T_322](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_322) ## Where next [T_320 same date, with 4 others](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_320)[T_219 same paper and inks, 2026.04.15](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_219)[2026.05.31 8 paintings on this date](https://peteryuill.art/days/2026-05-31)[Paper S11 every work on it](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S11)