T_302
The work as shown. Every value below comes from vae.db, the master database of the Crucible Year.
Recorded
- Date
- 2026.05.14, day 137
- 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
- 5.3
- Form
- 2
- Tonal depth
- 2
- Layering
- 2
- Composition
- 2
- Material and surface
- 1.4
- Ink cover
- 70%
- Dark share
- 22%
- Tonal steps
- 6
- Flaws named by the reads
- ring 6, bloom 3, tide line 3, water stain 2
Peter's own rating
- Rating
- 5
“There is always something that can be done better.”Peter Yuill · 2026.07.02
Older engine
- V7
- 7
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: 0.057 (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 good sweeping grey arc with real texture, held back by a bulky, flat black mass at the top left, crowded blocks along the left edge, and small rings and blooms where the mass meets the arc. Ordinary overall, close to R2.”
Large arc right/centre reads as one travelled stroke with dry-brush tail; top-left black mass is bulky, left vertical blocks blunt and stiff.
WEAKEST Bulky slab-like dark mass at top left
STRONGEST Sweeping grey arc following the brush travel
Arc interior shows mottled grain, banding and graded greys; six tonal steps. Top-left black mass mostly uniform except a lighter lower lobe.
WEAKEST Top-left black mass largely flat inside
STRONGEST Grey arc with grain, mottling and stepped density
Pale wide arc, darker inner grey band and black accents read as distinct passes; at left the black simply covers earlier grey.
WEAKEST Black mass covers greys beneath at left
STRONGEST Translucent grey arc passes overlapping legibly
Arc sweeps from dark top-left down and up to top right, shaping open upper paper; left edge clustered and crowded, lower left scattered splashes.
WEAKEST Crowded left edge with blocky verticals
STRONGEST Large arc carrying eye left to upper right
Small rings/blooms at centre-left where dark mass meets arc, visible in colour view; mottled tide edges in arc start. Dry-brush right side well handled.
WEAKEST Rings and blooms beside the dark mass
STRONGEST Dry-brush streaking in the right arc
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.
Measured from the 16-bit master.
The previous engine (V22) measured this sheet's master file: 6 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 23 edge segments, 39% crisp, 26% soft or bloomed, 35% 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.
1 major flaw: appliedThe rating cannot exceed 4.
lowest 1.4A read that breaks the reply format is discarded.
5 of 5 validV23 rating 5.3.
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.