--- title: "T_197, full record | Crucible Year" url: https://peteryuill.art/archive/works/T_197 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_197 [The work as shown](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_197). Every value below comes from vae.db, the master database of the Crucible Year. ## Recorded - **Date:** 2026.04.08, day 101 - **Size:** 97 × 180 cm - **Paper:** S11, Red Star Mo She Special Effect Xieyi, 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:** 5.5 - **Form:** 2 - **Tonal depth:** 2 - **Layering:** 2 - **Composition:** 2 - **Material and surface:** 1.6 - **Ink cover:** 52% - **Dark share:** 34% - **Tonal steps:** 3 - **Flaws named by the reads:** bloom 5, other 5, water stain 3, tide line 1 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. ## Peter's own rating - **Rating:** 6 Peter's rating is his own eye, not the engine's, and he never gives a 10. > “There is always something that can be done better.” Peter Yuill · 2026.07.02 ## Older engine - **V7:** 6 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_197] ![T_197, tone-stretched] ![T_197, classed by brightness] 52% 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: 0.051 (under 0.045 reads as flat). FIVE READS ## Five reads, agreeing on 4 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 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 2 SOUND 1 FLAWED 2 SOUND 2 SOUND 1 FLAWED 1.6 ### READ 1, IN ITS OWN WORDS “This is an ordinary, energetic sheet with a strong rising diagonal and a fluent wedge. A bulky lower dark mass, a cloudy mottled right panel with soft blooms, and loose spatter keep every ladder at a working average.” Form · BUILT Upper-left wedge tapers fluently; the long curved boat-form holds its walls but the lower-left mass is slab-like, and the right grey panel's edges dissolve into drips. WEAKEST Bulky lower-left dark slab with ragged blunt end STRONGEST Tapering dark wedge at upper left Tonal depth · MODELLED Dark lower mass shows horizontal streaks and banding; the central arc has bristle grain; right panel is a mid-grey mottle without real range. Modulation 0.051, just above flat. WEAKEST Mottled right grey panel reads cloudy, little depth STRONGEST Dry-brush streaked grey arc sweeping centre Layering · LEGIBLE Black boat-form and wedge read clearly over and beside the grey sweeping arc; about two to three passes, legible where they meet, without a built sequence across the sheet. WEAKEST Right panel's dark blots sit ambiguously in grey STRONGEST Dark boat-form over translucent grey arc, centre Composition · WORKING A clear rising movement carries the eye from the dark lower left up through the arc; top-left paper is shaped, but lower-right drops and the right panel feel loose. WEAKEST Scattered spatter and drips in the lower right STRONGEST Rising diagonal sweep from lower left to upper right Material and surface · SOUND Ink is controlled in the dark masses and the dry-brush arc; the right panel has reticulated mottling and two soft dark blooms, though these sit away from the principal black mass. WEAKEST Dark blooms inside the right grey panel STRONGEST Dry-brush grain in the central arc 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, 14 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: 4 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 18 edge segments, 56% crisp, 0% soft or bloomed, 44% 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. 2 major flaws: applied RULE 3 Any quality below 0.5 The rating cannot exceed 4. lowest 1.6 RULE 4 At least two valid reads A read that breaks the reply format is discarded. 5 of 5 valid THE ARITHMETIC ## V23 rating 5.5. 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 1.92 (2.0 + 2.0 + 2.0 + 2.0 + 1.6) ÷ 5 → RAW 4.84 1 + 2 × 1.92 → RATING 5.5 5 + 2.086 × (4.84 − 4.60) ## Where next [Every record the full archive](https://peteryuill.art/archive)[2026.04.08 every painting from this date](https://peteryuill.art/days/2026-04-08)