T_255
The work as shown. Every value below comes from vae.db, the master database of the Crucible Year.
Recorded
- Date
- 2026.04.21, day 114
- Size
- 70 × 180 cm
- Paper
- S3, Tanxi Jing Pi, raw
- Inks
- MB4, MB5, MB6
- Phase
- P2 The Switch
- 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
- 77%
- Dark share
- 62%
- Tonal steps
- 3
- Flaws named by the reads
- other 6, ring 3, bloom 1, water stain 2
Older engine
- V7
- 4
How the number was made
Read by the Visual Analysis Engine, version 23.8, on 2026.10.06: measured by code, then read 3 times by Claude Opus 5.5 against three reference paintings (R1 to R3), each read independent of the others. How the engine works.
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.
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, one answer.
Each quality placed on its ladder by each read, and the mean the engine keeps.
READ 1, IN ITS OWN WORDS
“A sweeping black arc and a broad grey wedge make a workable bowl. The wedge is slab-like, the black arc is fairly flat inside, and the blots inside the wedge count against the surface. An ordinary sheet, close to R2.”
Lower-left black arc follows the brush's travel with a dry-brush edge. The right wedge is a broad, stiff slab, and the top-left splash breaks into lobes.
WEAKEST Right grey wedge: bulky slab with blunt tip
STRONGEST Black sweeping arc with dry-brush striations, lower left
The right wedge shows grain, streaks and stepped density. The black arc is mostly uniform inside. Modulation of 0.051 is only just above flat; three tonal steps.
WEAKEST Black arc interior is largely flat
STRONGEST Right wedge with grain and graded grey
A pale grey splash sits under the black arc, and the arc meets the grey wedge at the bottom centre. Both overlaps stay readable. About three passes.
WEAKEST Top-left splash sits as a separate grey pass
STRONGEST Black arc overlapping grey wedge at bottom centre
The arc and the wedge make a bowl that cradles a shaped field of paper at top centre. The upper-left splash and the scattered drops feel crowded and loose.
WEAKEST Busy splash area upper left
STRONGEST Arc and wedge forming a bowl around the top paper
Three or four dark square blots sit inside the right wedge and show at viewing distance. There is a small bubble ring at the centre and scattered stray drops across the top.
WEAKEST Dark blots inside the right wedge
STRONGEST Dry-brush edge of the black arc
6 distinct places, 3 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, 12 mentions in all across 3 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.
Measured from the 16-bit master.
The previous engine (V22) measured this sheet's master file: 1 principal ink mass traced (cyan), 5 enclosed voids at true size in their grid cells (amber), the main gesture from start to end (red). Of 17 edge segments, 24% crisp, 65% soft or bloomed, 12% broken.
Tonal depth held at rung 1.
3 steps: not appliedMaterial held at rung 1. Mild waves in the unmounted paper are never a flaw.
3 major flaws: appliedThe rating cannot exceed 4.
lowest 1.0A read that breaks the reply format is discarded.
3 of 5 validV23 rating 5.0.
Engine v23.8, 3 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.