T_270
The work as shown. Every value below comes from vae.db, the master database of the Crucible Year.
Recorded
- Date
- 2026.04.26, day 119
- Size
- 97 × 180 cm
- Paper
- S4, Tanxi half-raw, 6-foot
- 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
- 5.2
- Form
- 2
- Tonal depth
- 2
- Layering
- 2
- Composition
- 2
- Material and surface
- 1.2
- Ink cover
- 83%
- Dark share
- 47%
- Tonal steps
- 6
- Flaws named by the reads
- other 15, water stain 5, ring 1
Older engine
- V7
- 6
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.
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.
6 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: 0.052 (under 0.045 reads as flat).
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, IN ITS OWN WORDS
“A bold S-curve with legible grey layering and good direction. Blunt slabs, flat-ish grey interiors, a crowded right side and paper creases keep the sheet ordinary, near R2.”
The main S-curve band holds its walls and follows the stroke. The upper-right grey block and the dark wedge are blunt, slab-like fills.
WEAKEST Bulky grey rectangular slab, upper right
STRONGEST Sweeping dark S-curve following the brush's travel
The stretched view shows arcs and stepped density in the left and lower dark curve. The grey slab upper right is mostly uniform. Modulation of 0.052 is modest.
WEAKEST Upper-right grey block, nearly flat inside
STRONGEST Banded arcs inside the lower dark curve
Two or three passes: pale grey band, mid-grey slabs, black curve. The overlaps at lower centre read clearly, but the black mostly covers what lies under it.
WEAKEST Black curve largely covers the earlier grey passes
STRONGEST Grey bands overlapping the dark curve at lower centre
The strong S direction shapes the inner white loop. With 83% coverage the sheet is crowded, and the top-right slab sits heavily against the curve.
WEAKEST Upper-right block competes and crowds the right side
STRONGEST S-movement carrying the eye from top to lower right
Ink is controlled. Fine paper creases run through the black mass. There is a small white skip at centre and scattered drops lower left and right; all are minor.
WEAKEST Crease lines crossing the dark curve interior
STRONGEST Dry-brush feathered edge of the dark wedge
4 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 4 distinct places, 21 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.
Measured from the 16-bit master.
The previous engine (V22) measured this sheet's master file: 1 principal ink mass traced (cyan), 2 enclosed voids at true size in their grid cells (amber), the main gesture from start to end (red). Of 18 edge segments, 39% crisp, 50% soft or bloomed, 11% broken.
Tonal depth held at rung 1.
6 steps: not appliedMaterial held at rung 1. Mild waves in the unmounted paper are never a flaw.
4 major flaws: appliedThe rating cannot exceed 4.
lowest 1.2A read that breaks the reply format is discarded.
5 of 5 validV23 rating 5.2.
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.