T_350
The engine's readingA split arch of square-ended brush blocks, pale grey stepping inward to black, parted by a white channel that drops into an open void.
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 channel is the cold strip down the middle of a bed two people have shared for years. On the left the blankets are folded back in careful layers, grey over grey, someone who tucks. On the right everything has been dragged into one black heap, the heap breathing, the heap entirely unsorry. I lay awake through a whole winter beside a heap like that, my foot finding the cold line and leaving it alone. You learn a person by the space they will not cross. Below, the sheet opens into a pale room with the light still off, and the door left a little ajar.
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
- two arcs of rectangular blocks forming one arch, parted by a white channel
- Movement
- curving round the arch from left to right; nothing runs against it
- Coverage
- ink on about four fifths of the paper
- Tone
- four tonal steps, weighted dark
- Layering
- translucent grey passes under black; readable on the left and outer right
- Edges
- dry, grainy block ends; firm arc walls; softer outer pale sweeps
- Feibai
- present in the outermost curved sweeps, lower right and lower left
- Open paper
- narrow vertical channel left of centre, widening into a rounded void below
- Chance marks
- white flecks in right black, spatter upper right, creases top left, drips in channel
- Frame
- ink runs off left, top and bottom; top right corner and upper right edge open
A great arch of wide, square-ended strokes fans across the paper, broken just left of centre by a white channel that falls from the top edge and opens into a pale void below. The eye climbs one side and comes down the other, pulled round by the curve.
The left arc does the finest work. Each block steps a tone darker as it moves inward, pale grey at the rim, black at the inner band, and every overlap stays legible. Cooked xuan is sized, so the ink sits on the surface instead of sinking: a grey laid over a grey stays its own pane. At the squared ends the brush skips on that slick paper and leaves grain, so each block keeps the record of its pull.
The right arc pays for its weight. Pass upon pass of black has fused into one flat slab that buries the greys beneath it, has no step or grain inside, and tips the sheet to that side. Small white flecks break its surface.
The curve still runs through the heavy side, and the channel holds both halves in one shape. Built with this much order, its space this well cut, the sheet stands clearly above the year's usual run.
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.
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: 0.028 (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
“A concentric-arc sheet in R3's idiom, with clear translucent layering and a well-shaped empty centre. It falls short of R3 because the right black mass is flat and slab-like and the weight sits unevenly. Surface flaws are minor.”
Rectangular wide-brush blocks step around a ring with holding walls; right-centre black merges into a heavy slab, losing individual stroke shape.
WEAKEST Right black mass fuses into one bulky slab
STRONGEST Stepped arc blocks at left following brush travel
Outer grey bands show stepped density and brush grain; the large right black mass is flat inside (modulation 0.028).
WEAKEST Interior of big right black mass
STRONGEST Graded translucent grey blocks around the outer ring
Several translucent passes, pale outer to black inner, overlap legibly in stepped order across both arcs; four tonal steps.
WEAKEST Black passes on right cover earlier greys
STRONGEST Overlapping translucent grey blocks, left arc
Concentric arc sweeps across the frame; vertical paper channel and lower void shape the space; right half heavier than left.
WEAKEST Right side weighted heavily by black mass
STRONGEST Pale vertical gap and open circle at bottom centre
Ink controlled with dry-brush edges; small white specks in right black, faint crease lines top left, drips in central strip are minor.
WEAKEST White scratch specks inside right black mass
STRONGEST Dry-brush grain at block edges
4 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 4 distinct places, 12 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), 5 enclosed voids at true size in their grid cells (amber), the main gesture from start to end (red). Of 17 edge segments, 77% crisp, 18% 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_350 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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