---
title: "T_339, sumi ink on paper | Crucible Year"
url: https://peteryuill.art/works/T_339
description: "T_339 by Peter Yuill: A fan of ink arcs, pale grey outside and black within, wheels from the left edge round a half-moon of bare paper and off the bottom right. Sumi ink on Red Star Mo She Special Effect Xieyi Edition, half-raw (June 2025 batch), 97 × 180 cm, 2026.06.03. Crucible Year."
source: generated from the Crucible Year master database
---

![A large fan of concentric arcs, pale grey outside to black inside, curves from the left edge over the top to the bottom right around a white half-circle.]

![T_339, tone-stretched: what the model was shown]

![T_339: every pixel as the measuring code classes it]

97 × 180 cm · the whole sheet, uncropped

# T_339

The engine's reading

A fan of ink arcs, pale grey outside and black within, wheels from the left edge round a half-moon of bare paper and off the bottom right.
Record

- **Date:** 2026.06.03

- **Dimensions:** 97 × 180 cm

- **Paper:** [Red Star Mo She Special Effect Xieyi Edition, half-raw (June 2025 batch)](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S12)

- **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_339](https://peteryuill.art/enquiries?work=T_339) Availability, price or a studio visit. Peter replies himself; asking commits you to nothing.

The white half-circle at the bottom is where I put my hand. Bands of grey stand round it in order, oldest on the outside, youngest and blackest nearest the middle, the way shells of gas hang round a star that has said most of what it had to say. Out at the palest edge the light left a very long time ago. It is still arriving. I stood at the rim and the black did not move, which is the correct speed for something that size. The cold out there is complete and does not apologise for itself. At the far right the last band thins into streaks, a tail of dust leaving past the edge of the paper, into the dark.

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_339#details)[The reading](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_339#reading)[How it was read](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_339#read)[Date](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_339#date)[Materials](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_339#materials)[Related](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_339#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 bands in one fan, turning around a shared centre at lower middle
- **Movement:** one sweep from left edge, over the top, down off the bottom right; nothing against it
- **Coverage:** ink on about four fifths of the paper
- **Tone:** four tonal steps, weighted dark
- **Layering:** pale grey, mid grey and black passes; order readable across the top and right
- **Edges:** crisp squared ends on the blocks; soft dry-brush fades at the right ends
- **Feibai:** present at the dry right ends of the arcs, lower right
- **Open paper:** half-circle of bare paper at lower centre; open sky at top left
- **Chance marks:** small pale tide-edged blots in grey wash near left edge; crinkle lines across the darks
- **Frame:** ink runs off left, right and bottom edges; top and lower-left corner stay open

A great fan of ink swings in from the left edge, climbs over the top and drops off the bottom right, wheeling round a half-moon of bare paper at lower centre. The eye takes it in one breath, and the empty half-circle pulls as hard as the black.

The right side shows how it was built. Pale grey bands went down first, mid greys over them, black last. On this half-sized bark paper each pass kept its own edge and did not sink into the one beneath, so the order reads band by band, outward from black to the faintest wash. Where the arcs end at the right, the brush ran fast and dry and the hairs parted into flying white.

The costs are real and small. The black block at top centre sits square and even, more slab than stroke. Grey stubs crowd the start of the turn at upper left, and weight piles into the cropped lower right. Two pale blots mark the left wash; paper wrinkles crackle across the darks, and the sheet absorbs them.

The turn holds from its first pale band to its last dark one. Sheets this whole are seldom made, and this one stands among the finest the archive holds.

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_339]

![T_339, tone-stretched]

![T_339, classed by brightness]

78% of the sheet carries ink

TONAL STEPS

## 4 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: 0.056 (under 0.045 reads as flat).

FIVE READS

## Five reads, agreeing on 2 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 3 FLUENT 3 FLUENT 2 BUILT 2 BUILT 2 BUILT 2.4

Tonal depth 3 DEEP 2 MODELLED 3 DEEP 3 DEEP 2 MODELLED 2.6

Layering 3 ORDERED 3 ORDERED 3 ORDERED 3 ORDERED 3 ORDERED 3.0

Composition 3 COMMANDING 3 COMMANDING 3 COMMANDING 2 WORKING 3 COMMANDING 2.8

Material and surface 2 SOUND 2 SOUND 2 SOUND 2 SOUND 2 SOUND 2.0

### READ 1, IN ITS OWN WORDS

“Fan of layered arc segments close to R3's idiom: ordered translucent passes, graded greys, shaped void. Lowest black arc somewhat bulky, right side crowded, minor blots at left keep material at sound.”

Form · FLUENT

Arc segments follow brush travel around a common centre; walls hold with dry-brush ends. Lowest black arc is bulky but still curved and made.

WEAKEST heavy lowest black arc, slightly slab-like at left end

STRONGEST upper black trapezoid segment with clean dragged walls

Tonal depth · DEEP

Modulation 0.056, four tonal steps; tone-stretched view shows arcs, grain and crackle inside black masses, and a stepped range of greys outward to paper.

WEAKEST darkest lower arc near-uniform at left end

STRONGEST right-side grey segments graded with brush banding

Layering · ORDERED

Pale grey fan segments laid first, mid greys then black over them; overlaps read clearly across top and right, building depth in sequence.

WEAKEST black arcs partly cover earlier grey passes

STRONGEST translucent pale segments overlapping at upper left

Composition · COMMANDING

One sweeping arc carries eye from left to bottom right; the inner white void and upper-left paper are shaped. Weight crowds right edge somewhat.

WEAKEST bottom-right crop feels heavy and cut

STRONGEST sweeping fan arc around the open lower-centre void

Material and surface · SOUND

Ink controlled with dry-brush edges; small blot/ring marks in pale grey at left edge; crinkle network across darks reads as paper texture, not major.

WEAKEST small pale blots in left grey wash

STRONGEST dry-brush grain at segment ends, upper centre

FLAWS

## 3 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 3 distinct places, 10 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: 1 principal ink mass traced (cyan), 2 enclosed voids at true size in their grid cells (amber), the main gesture from start to end (red). Of 16 edge segments, 38% crisp, 31% soft or bloomed, 31% 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_339).

## Date

2026.06.03, day 157 of the Crucible Year, one of 12 paintings from that date. 18 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).

Every painting from 2026.06.03 is shown here. 2 other dates with more than five works can say the same.

THE YEAR

## T_339 among all 402

Every painting of the year by date; this one is outlined.

[Every painting from 2026.06.03](https://peteryuill.art/days/2026-06-03) · [This date in the year](https://peteryuill.art/year?follow=2026-06-03)

## Materials

- **Paper:** [Red Star Mo She Special Effect Xieyi Edition, half-raw (June 2025 batch)](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S12), China Xuan Paper Co., Ltd., made 2025.06.07

- **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 last painting on S12 so far, after 44 others.

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 · 11

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_338](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_338)
[Back to all works](https://peteryuill.art/works)
[Next T_340](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_340)

## Where next

[T_328 same date, with 10 others](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_328)[T_340 the next shown painting in the sequence](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_340)[T_208 same paper and inks, 2026.04.12](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_208)[2026.06.03 12 paintings on this date](https://peteryuill.art/days/2026-06-03)[Paper S12 every work on it](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S12)
