--- title: "T_159, full record | Crucible Year" url: https://peteryuill.art/archive/works/T_159 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_159 [The work as shown](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_159). Every value below comes from vae.db, the master database of the Crucible Year. ## Recorded - **Date:** 2026.03.28, day 90 - **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:** 76% - **Dark share:** 35% - **Tonal steps:** 7 - **Flaws named by the reads:** bloom 3, ring 6, water stain 7, other 2, 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_159] ![T_159, tone-stretched] ![T_159, classed by brightness] 76% of the sheet carries ink TONAL STEPS ## 7 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: 0.063 (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 “An ordinary sheet. A strong sweeping arc with good dry-brush and grained tone is let down by a weak, bloomed right crescent and by water rings in the grey wash.” Form · BUILT The left arc follows the brush's travel, ending in fluent dry-brush streaks. The left end is bulky and slab-like. The right crescent's edges are blotchy, not fully made. WEAKEST Right crescent: blotchy, its walls dissolve into mottling STRONGEST Main sweeping arc with dry-brush tail Tonal depth · MODELLED Seven tonal steps and dark modulation of 0.063. The arc shows grain, cracks and graded density. The far-left dark mass is fairly flat. The right crescent is mottled rather than modelled. WEAKEST Lower-left black end of arc is fairly uniform STRONGEST Arc body grading from black to grain-streaked grey Layering · LEGIBLE There is a grey ground wash, a dark arc pass, dry-brush overstrokes and the right crescent. These overlaps can be read at centre, but the sequence doesn't build much depth. WEAKEST The black arc mostly covers the grey wash beneath STRONGEST Dry-brush streaks crossing the pale grey wash at centre Composition · WORKING The big arc gives strong left-to-right movement and shapes the white oval. The right-hand crescent echoes the curve, but the gap of grey wash at centre-right feels slack. WEAKEST The right crescent sits isolated and is weakly tied in STRONGEST Large arc enclosing the shaped white oval upper-left Material and surface · FLAWED The right crescent's interior is full of bloom rings and blotches. There are tide rings in the grey wash at centre-right and pale stain splotches in the white oval, all visible in the colour view. WEAKEST Bloomed, ringed interior of right crescent STRONGEST Dry-brush streak edges of the arc's tail FLAWS ## 6 distinct places, 2 major. Each read must name every flaw and where it is, in a ninth of the sheet. Here the reads named flaws in 6 distinct places, 20 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: 2 principal ink masses traced (cyan), 7 enclosed voids at true size in their grid cells (amber), the main gesture from start to end (red). Of 17 edge segments, 29% crisp, 59% soft or bloomed, 12% broken. RULE 1 Two tonal steps or fewer Tonal depth held at rung 1. 7 steps: not applied RULE 2 A major flaw Material held at rung 1. Mild waves in the unmounted paper are never a flaw. 6 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)[2026.03.28 every painting from this date](https://peteryuill.art/days/2026-03-28)