--- title: "T_393, sumi ink on paper | Crucible Year" url: https://peteryuill.art/works/T_393 description: "T_393 by Peter Yuill: Two black fans face each other across a thin white slit that opens into a pale round void, with red drops at the lower left. Sumi ink on Half-Cooked Red Star Mo She 6-Foot Bark Xuan Paper, self-sized, 97 × 180 cm, 2026.10.16. Crucible Year." source: generated from the Crucible Year master database --- ![Two large black quarter-circle fans with grey rims face each other across a narrow white vertical gap, with small red drops at lower left.] ![T_393, tone-stretched: what the model was shown] ![T_393: every pixel as the measuring code classes it] 97 × 180 cm · the whole sheet, uncropped # T_393 The engine's reading Two black fans face each other across a thin white slit that opens into a pale round void, with red drops at the lower left. Record - **Date:** 2026.10.16 - **Dimensions:** 97 × 180 cm - **Paper:** [Half-Cooked Red Star Mo She 6-Foot Bark Xuan Paper, self-sized from October 2026](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S14) - **Ink:** [Yi De Ge Yun Tou Yan](https://peteryuill.art/inks/MB6), [Boku-Undo Gentoku Super Concentrated](https://peteryuill.art/inks/MB8), [Yi De Ge Pine Soot Ink](https://peteryuill.art/inks/MB9), [Shisan Yue Calligraphy and Painting Ink](https://peteryuill.art/inks/MB10), colour inks [Enquire about T_393](https://peteryuill.art/enquiries?work=T_393) Availability, price or a studio visit. Peter replies himself; asking commits you to nothing. The old story says a smith split a dark wheel to settle a debt, and the gods made him keep both halves forever, close enough to touch and never closing. I believe it more than I should. The gap between them is thin enough for a blade, and somewhere in the retelling a hero squeezes down it to reach the round white room at the bottom. He does not come back clean. A few drops of red wait at the threshold. In the folk versions that is always the toll: a little blood to pass, left on the step so the next fool knows the door is real. I would go anyway. I would complain the whole way down, and leave my red on the step beside his. 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_393#details)[The reading](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_393#reading)[How it was read](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_393#read)[Date](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_393#date)[Materials](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_393#materials)[Related](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_393#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:** two quarter-circle fans, split by a vertical channel, notched toward a central void - **Movement:** arcs sweeping down and inward toward the bottom centre; nothing runs against them - **Coverage:** ink on about four fifths of the paper - **Tone:** three tonal steps, weighted dark - **Layering:** grey washes under a black final pass; readable only as bands at the rims and notches - **Edges:** soft stepped grey at outer arcs; crisp straight cuts along both inner walls - **Feibai:** none - **Open paper:** narrow vertical slit widening into a round void at the bottom centre - **Colour:** red drops below the left fan and along its notch - **Chance marks:** spatter dots on the left margin; cloudy grey wash beneath the left fan - **Frame:** right fan runs off the right and bottom edges; top and left stay open Two black fans lean toward each other across a slit of white paper. The slit drops into a pale round opening at the bottom centre, and every arc on the sheet pulls toward it. Weight arrives first. The black is enormous, and the paper has to fight for room. The rims are where the painting lives. Translucent grey bands step out from the black like rings in cut timber. They are clearest where the right fan swings off the edge. The paper was sized with alum, so each wash sits on the surface and keeps its own edge. The left fan's curved notch, bitten out above the red, is the best-drawn line here. Inside the fans, the layering stops. The last black pass covers everything beneath it, and both cores turn to flat slabs. The left fan's straight walls look trimmed instead of brushed. A cloudy grey wash and a few spatter dots sit at the left margin, and the sheet absorbs both. The red works as paint. It is small and hot, and it sits exactly where the notch meets the void. Still, the sheet lands where most sheets land. The design is clear and the hand is sure, but only the edges are alive. Measured ## How it was read Read by the Visual Analysis Engine, version 23.8, on 2026.10.17: 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_393] ![T_393, tone-stretched] ![T_393, classed by brightness] 83% 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: 0.035 (under 0.045 reads as flat). FIVE READS ## Five reads, one answer. Each quality placed on its ladder by each read, and the mean the engine keeps. 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 1 THIN 1 THIN 1 THIN 1 THIN 1 THIN 1.0 Layering 2 LEGIBLE 2 LEGIBLE 2 LEGIBLE 2 LEGIBLE 2 LEGIBLE 2.0 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 “Two fans built like R3's, but heavier and with flat black interiors. The banding shows only at the rims, the sheet is crowded and the surface is sound. The red drops are deliberate colour. An ordinary sheet overall.” Form · BUILT Two quarter-arc fans with walls that hold and edges that follow the sweep, but both bodies are bulky filled slabs rather than travelled strokes. WEAKEST Right fan's dense, slab-like dark body STRONGEST Left fan's curved inner notch and arc edge Tonal depth · THIN Measured dark modulation 0.035 is flat. Tone steps only at the fan rims; the large black interiors read as uniform surface in the colour view. WEAKEST Flat black interior of right fan STRONGEST Stepped grey bands at outer arc edges Layering · LEGIBLE Two or three passes legible as concentric grey bands at the rims and the grey wash at bottom left; inside, later black simply covers the earlier ones. WEAKEST Dark core covers earlier passes entirely STRONGEST Translucent outer grey rings around both fans Composition · WORKING Paired fans around a central slit and opening make a clear structure, but 83% coverage leaves the empty paper as cramped margins; the arrangement is static. WEAKEST Crowded, near-symmetric masses filling the sheet STRONGEST Narrow vertical gap leading into the central white Material and surface · SOUND Ink is controlled, red drops at the bottom are deliberate colour, and the edges are clean; small spatter dots at left and a faintly cloudy wash at bottom left are minor. WEAKEST Cloudy grey wash at bottom left STRONGEST Dry-brush grain at right fan's lower edge 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. 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_393). ## Date 2026.10.16, day 292 of the Crucible Year, one of 12 paintings from that date (9 shown). 0 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: [P4 S14](https://peteryuill.art/phases/P4) (working title). The first paintings registered in 21 days. THE YEAR ## T_393 among all 402 Every painting of the year by date; this one is outlined. [Every painting from 2026.10.16](https://peteryuill.art/days/2026-10-16) · [This date in the year](https://peteryuill.art/year?follow=2026-10-16) ## Materials - **Paper:** [Half-Cooked Red Star Mo She 6-Foot Bark Xuan Paper, self-sized from October 2026](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S14), China Xuan Paper Co., Ltd., made 2026.04.08 - **Ink MB6:** [Yi De Ge Yun Tou Yan](https://peteryuill.art/inks/MB6), Yi De Ge (Beijing) - **Ink MB8:** [Boku-Undo Gentoku Super Concentrated](https://peteryuill.art/inks/MB8), Boku-Undo - **Ink MB9:** [Yi De Ge Pine Soot Ink](https://peteryuill.art/inks/MB9), Yi De Ge (Beijing) - **Ink MB10:** [Shisan Yue Calligraphy and Painting Ink](https://peteryuill.art/inks/MB10), Shisan Yue (Thirteenth Month) - **Colour:** colour inks, recorded together The sheet of paper was made 191 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 · 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_392](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_392) [Back to all works](https://peteryuill.art/works) [Next T_395](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_395) ## Where next [T_386 same date, with 7 others](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_386)[2026.10.16 12 paintings on this date](https://peteryuill.art/days/2026-10-16)[Paper S14 every work on it](https://peteryuill.art/papers/S14)