[
  {
    "run": "RL-1",
    "final": "clean:1",
    "png": "paintings/RL-1/branches/clean/sittings/001/state.png",
    "geometry": 0.71,
    "dx": 0.626,
    "light_x": 0.228,
    "glow": false,
    "relocated": true,
    "snow": 0.872,
    "lit_brook": false,
    "first_question": "My question: can the frozen brook be the walker's actual road, so that one low left light makes near shadowed snow, the small lit figure on the ice and the pale ruin against dark weather one consequential line of travel? This coat lays the whole design: graded sky, cast shadow over the near snow, slate ice with black open leads, lit stone.",
    "hold_paragraph": "The light comes from behind the viewer: a low sun a little to the left, outside the picture, at our backs. Its source is never seen. There is no glow at the horizon, where a band of storm stands on the ground as the darkest mass, and the pale zenith fades down into it. So the near snow is the brightest thing in the picture, and the ruin is lit flat from the front, a pale cut-out against the weather. Everything the light leaves dark points away from us: the shadow of a tree we cannot see crosses the near snow and touches the brook, the shadows of unseen fence posts stripe the foreground, and the small walker's own shadow runs from his feet on the ice. All of these converge on the ruin's foot. That straight geometry is laid against the frozen brook's meander, whose black open leads carry the eye to the same place. Keeping the low light costs the picture its sun and its glow; what it gains is that the viewer stands where the light stands, and that viewer's shadows reach the ruin. Weak points are still visible: the post shadows are even and diagrammatic, the ruin's base simply meets the snow, and the walker's shadow is faint where it crosses pale ice."
  },
  {
    "run": "RL-2",
    "final": "shadows:1",
    "png": "paintings/RL-2/branches/shadows/sittings/001/state.png",
    "geometry": 0.711,
    "dx": 0.254,
    "light_x": 0.601,
    "glow": false,
    "relocated": true,
    "snow": 0.852,
    "lit_brook": false,
    "first_question": "My question: can the frozen brook be the single path of light through a dusk snowfield, so the eye goes walker -> ice -> ruin and the brook makes the distance (and so the walker's smallness) measurable? This sitting: first full coat of sky (cool above, warm glow low behind the ruin), dark far band, mid-light cool snow darkening toward the near edge, laid through brook, ruin and walker.",
    "hold_paragraph": "The painting is a dark slate sky standing as a wall over a lit snowfield. The light is not a sun behind the ruin: it comes low from behind the viewer's left shoulder. It falls on the snow and on the ruin's face, so the choir stands pale against the darkest part of the sky. The brook does not carry that light. It is a broken dark lead of open water in pale ice, mirroring the dark sky ahead, and it runs from the left edge past the small dark walker to the ruin's foot. Two shadows contradict each other, and that is the cost of keeping a single light: the walker's thin shadow runs away from us and points at the ruin, while the ruin's shadow runs forward down the brook toward him. Something behind the viewer, never shown, casts a heavy shadow across the near snow. Open: the brook's dashes are too regular, the near shadow's edge is ragged and even, and the ice rims are a little ruled."
  },
  {
    "run": "RL-3",
    "final": "dark:3",
    "png": "paintings/RL-3/branches/dark/sittings/003/state.png",
    "geometry": 0.728,
    "dx": 0.312,
    "light_x": 0.542,
    "glow": true,
    "relocated": true,
    "snow": 0.762,
    "lit_brook": false,
    "first_question": "My question: can the brook alone carry the eye from the small walker standing on its ice back to the ruin, by running dark at his feet and brightening as it nears the ruin where it mirrors the low glow, so that the ruin is the one darkest shape against the brightest light and the walker's smallness is measured by that distance? This sitting: let the block-in dry, then lay the first full coat of sky (cool above, warm glow behind the ruin) and snow (warm-lit at the horizon, cool toward the viewer), through ruin and walker.",
    "hold_paragraph": "RL-3 refuses the low sun behind the ruin. The light comes low from behind the viewer: it falls on a bright snow field and on the face of the ruin, which stands pale, almost ghostly, against a heavy dark slate sky, so the void overhead is the painting's dark and the ruin is its lightest shape above the horizon. The brook is no longer the sun's path. It is a dark cut, mirroring that sky, carrying the eye from the small dark walker on its ice to the ruin's foot. The light is told by two shadows that contradict each other. The walker's runs away from us toward the ruin, as the light behind us demands. The ruin's reaches forward toward the walker, cast by the refused sun that is never shown: that is the cost of keeping it, a shadow without its source. The two end with a gap of snow between them. Value holds the inversion (dark sky, lit ground, pale ruin, dark brook, darkest walker). In squint the walker's shadow dissolves and the ruin's shadow reads as a brownish smudge with a ragged edge. The storm sky keeps a mottled, dabbed pattern. Stopped at 6 of 8 sittings."
  }
]