---
title: "T_146, full record | Crucible Year"
url: https://peteryuill.art/archive/works/T_146
description: "Crucible Year: a continuous year of sumi ink painting on paper by Peter Yuill, begun 29 December 2025."
source: generated from the Crucible Year master database
---

Archive · full record

# T_146

[The work as shown](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_146). Every value below comes from vae.db, the master database of the Crucible Year.

## Recorded

- **Date:** 2026.03.27, day 89
- **Size:** 70 × 180 cm
- **Paper:** S3, Tanxi Jing Pi, raw
- **Inks:** MB1, MB2, MB3
- **Phase:** P1 Warm-up

- **Shown on the site:** yes (V23 rating of 5.0 or higher)

- **Early storage triage:** SA: save, archive (Peter's early system, since retired)

## Measured · V23 (v23.8)

- **V23 rating:** 5
- **Form:** 2
- **Tonal depth:** 2
- **Layering:** 2
- **Composition:** 2
- **Material and surface:** 1
- **Ink cover:** 73%
- **Dark share:** 64%
- **Tonal steps:** 3

- **Flaws named by the reads:** bloom 5, other 4, water stain 5, tide line 2

The V23 rating runs from 1 to 9, with 5 the middle of this body of work. It is the engine's reading, and the reference the archive is measured against.

## Older engine

- **V7:** 9

From an earlier engine (V7). Its scale differs from V23's, so it is only ever compared with other readings by the same engine.

## How the number was made

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_146]

![T_146, tone-stretched]

![T_146, classed by brightness]

73% 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: 0.057 (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 2 MODELLED 2 MODELLED 2 MODELLED 2 MODELLED 2 MODELLED 2.0

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 1 FLAWED 1 FLAWED 1 FLAWED 1 FLAWED 1 FLAWED 1.0

### READ 1, IN ITS OWN WORDS

“The bold arc rising into a black right block has a clear direction and a feathered edge. The right mass is a flat slab, and blooms mottle the lower band.”

Form · BUILT

The arc band holds its curve and follows the stroke's travel. The right black mass is a heavy filled-in rectangle with a stiff vertical right edge.

WEAKEST Right dark block: bulky slab with blunt edges

STRONGEST Sweeping grey arc with feathered upper edge

Tonal depth · MODELLED

The arc interior shows grain, mottling and graded density. The right black block varies only slightly (modulation 0.057). Three tonal steps.

WEAKEST Upper part of the right black mass is near-uniform

STRONGEST Arc band, graded from pale texture to deep grey

Layering · LEGIBLE

A pale textured arc, a darker grey crescent and the black block read as separate passes along the arc. On the right the black largely buries what lies beneath.

WEAKEST Right block mostly covers the earlier passes

STRONGEST Grey arc pass under a darker overlapping crescent

Composition · WORKING

The curve carries the eye up and to the right, and the empty upper left takes a dome shape. The right block is dense and dead weight.

WEAKEST Right third is a heavy, static black wall

STRONGEST Arc sweeping from bottom left up into the right mass

Material and surface · FLAWED

Round dark blotches scattered through the lower grey band are visible in the colour view. A vertical crease line runs through the right black mass. Stray spots in the upper left.

WEAKEST Mottled bloom spots across the lower arc band

STRONGEST Feathered dry-bleed fringe along the arc's upper edge

FLAWS

## 3 distinct places, 1 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, 16 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. A major flaw holds Material and surface at rung 1.

GEOMETRY

## Measured from the 16-bit master.

The previous engine (V22) measured this sheet's master file: 5 principal ink masses traced (cyan), 3 enclosed voids at true size in their grid cells (amber), the main gesture from start to end (red). Of 26 edge segments, 12% crisp, 85% soft or bloomed, 4% broken.

RULE 1 Two tonal steps or fewer

Tonal depth held at rung 1. 3 steps: not applied

RULE 2 A major flaw

Material held at rung 1. Mild waves in the unmounted paper are never a flaw. 5 major flaws: applied

RULE 3 Any quality below 0.5

The rating cannot exceed 4. lowest 1.0

RULE 4 At least two valid reads

A read that breaks the reply format is discarded. 5 of 5 valid

THE ARITHMETIC

## V23 rating 5.0.

Engine v23.8, 5 reads. Fixed arithmetic, the same for every painting; the constants were set on 24 randomly chosen paintings so the median sheet scores 5. The scale is relative to this archive, not to painting in general, and a difference of less than half a point between two paintings is noise.

MEAN RUNG 1.80 (2.0 + 2.0 + 2.0 + 2.0 + 1.0) ÷ 5
→

RAW 4.60 1 + 2 × 1.80
→

RATING 5.0 5 + 2.086 × (4.60 − 4.60)

## Where next

[Every record the full archive](https://peteryuill.art/archive)[2026.03.27 every painting from this date](https://peteryuill.art/days/2026-03-27)
