T_347
The engine's readingTwo halves of a broken black and grey arch curl around a white oval, split by a narrow channel of bare paper that runs to the bottom edge.
Record- Date
- 2026.06.06
- Dimensions
- 70 × 140 cm
- Paper
- Qing Yi Cooked Xuan
- Ink
- Yi De Ge Refined Ink Juice, Boku-Undo Genso, Yi De Ge Yun Tou Yan
The white hole at the top came first, and everything else fell toward it in rings, lining up in order, pale on the outside, darker as it nears. The black bands are where the falling stopped. Nothing gets out of a black like that. Light doesn't, grain doesn't, not one hair of the brush does, and I am fond of them for it, the way you are fond of a star that collapsed instead of dimming politely. The channel down the middle is the crack in the disc where the deep years leaked out. At the bottom edge they are still running: a thin white river headed for the floor of the universe.
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 two halves, parted by a central vertical channel
- Movement
- radial sweep around the top oval, with squared band ends cutting across it
- Coverage
- ink on about nine tenths of the paper
- Tone
- three tonal steps, weighted dark
- Layering
- grey passes under black, readable through the overlaps on both halves
- Edges
- crisp squared band ends, with dry broken edges on central greys and outer arcs
- Feibai
- present in the outermost grey arc at right
- Open paper
- white oval at top centre narrowing into a channel to the bottom, plus the lower-left corner
- Chance marks
- droplets right of the channel, pale scratches in the lower-right black band, creases upper left
- Frame
- ink runs off the top, left and right edges; the lower-left corner and the channel foot stay open
The eye meets the white oval at the top, then drops down a narrow channel of bare paper to the bottom edge. Around that opening two halves of an arch swing outward, grey outside and black within. The whole thing reads as a ring broken open across the width.
The left half is where paper and ink agree best. The sized paper holds each grey pass on its surface, so every edge survives under the next pass and the stack climbs from pale to black in plain order. Near the channel the greys end in dry, grained edges. At far right the outer arc thins to streaks of bare paper that keep the curve travelling.
The blacks are the cost. The inner arcs, upper left and right, lie so dense that the paper holds them as a sealed film with no movement inside. The dark ends at lower left crowd together with little shaped space between them. Scratches in the lower-right black band and droplets near the channel are small, and the sheet takes them.
The structure is sure, and the layering reads from edge to edge. The flat blacks are a real limit on depth. Even so, the arch stands well above the usual run and holds a room.
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.
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.
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: 0.045 (under 0.045 reads as flat).
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, IN ITS OWN WORDS
“This is a concentric-arc sheet in the R3 family. The translucent layering is clear and well ordered. It is held back by flat black inner bands, blocky segment ends and a crowded, nearly full sheet with little shaped empty paper.”
Concentric arc bands hold their walls and follow the sweep; several inner dark segments end in stiff squared blocks, notably the right-centre rectangle and the lower-right wedge.
WEAKEST Blocky rectangular dark segment, right centre
STRONGEST Large dark upper-left arc following brush travel
Grey bands carry streaked grain and stepped density, but the darkest arc segments are flat inside; dark modulation 0.0445 sits just under the flat threshold.
WEAKEST Flat black inner arcs, upper left and right
STRONGEST Dry-brush grained grey bands near centre gap
Several translucent passes overlap in a readable order, grey under dark, each band's edge still visible through the next, building depth across both halves.
WEAKEST Dense overlaps at lower-left dark cluster
STRONGEST Translucent stacked arcs, left half
Arch of arcs around a central white void and vertical channel gives a clear direction; 85% coverage leaves the sheet crowded, with paper reduced to corners.
WEAKEST Crowded lower-left; little shaped empty paper
STRONGEST Central white channel splitting the arch
Ink controlled and bound; small pale streaks in the lower-right dark block, droplet dots right of centre and crease lines are small, not disruptive.
WEAKEST Pale scratch streaks in lower-right dark band
STRONGEST Dry-brush edges on central grey bands
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, 15 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.
Measured from the 16-bit master.
The previous engine (V22) measured this sheet's master file: 2 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 18 edge segments, 44% crisp, 50% soft or bloomed, 6% 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.
Date
2026.06.06, day 160 of the Crucible Year, one of 11 paintings from that date. 30 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 (working title).
T_347 among all 402
Every painting of the year by date; this one is outlined.
Materials
- Paper
- Qing Yi Cooked Xuan, Jingxian Sichijian Xuan Paper Arts & Crafts Co., Ltd., made unknown
- Ink MB4
- Yi De Ge Refined Ink Juice, Yi De Ge (Beijing)
- Ink MB5
- Boku-Undo Genso, Boku-Undo
- Ink MB6
- Yi De Ge Yun Tou Yan, Yi De Ge (Beijing)
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