Crucible Year Peter Yuill
Archive · full record

T_317

The work as shown. Every value below comes from vae.db, the master database of the Crucible Year.

Recorded

Date
2026.05.24, day 147
Size
97 × 180 cm
Paper
S10, Red Star Mo She Imitation Antique Chu bark, Exhibition Edition
Inks
MB4, MB5, MB6, MC
Phase
P3 The Floor Rises
Shown on the site
yes (V23 rating of 5.0 or higher)
Early storage triage
SHP: save, has potential (Peter's early system, since retired)

Measured · V23 (v23.8)

V23 rating
7.2
Form
2.2
Tonal depth
2.4
Layering
2
Composition
3
Material and surface
2
Ink cover
68%
Dark share
37%
Tonal steps
5
Flaws named by the reads
other 6, bloom 2, water stain 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.

Peter's own rating

Rating
9
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

V10C
9
From an earlier engine (V10C). 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.

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_317T_317, tone-stretchedT_317, classed by brightness
68%of the sheet carries ink
Black 37%Grey 35%Light 28% SHARE OF THE INK, NOT OF THE SHEET
TONAL STEPS

5 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: 0.056 (under 0.045 reads as flat).

0.300.7512345 BLACK INK TRANSLUCENT GREYS PALEST INK, 0.88 LUMINANCE OF EVERY INKED PIXEL, 64 BINS. PAPER (ABOVE 0.88) IS LEFT OUT.
FIVE READS

Five reads, agreeing on 3 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 1READ 2READ 3READ 4READ 5MEAN
Form2BUILT2BUILT2BUILT3FLUENT2BUILT2.2
Tonal depth2MODELLED3DEEP2MODELLED2MODELLED3DEEP2.4
Layering2LEGIBLE2LEGIBLE2LEGIBLE2LEGIBLE2LEGIBLE2.0
Composition3COMMANDING3COMMANDING3COMMANDING3COMMANDING3COMMANDING3.0
Material and surface2SOUND2SOUND2SOUND2SOUND2SOUND2.0

READ 1, IN ITS OWN WORDS

“A strong circular composition built on a fluent crescent with banded tone. The lower-right mass is bulkier and flatter inside, with minor drip accidents. Layering is legible but modest, so the sheet sits slightly above R2.”

Form · BUILT

The left crescent's outline follows a single circular stroke with dry-brush tails. The lower-right mass is slab-like, and its upward horn joins clumsily.

WEAKEST Lower-right dark mass, bulky with an awkward spike

STRONGEST Large crescent sweep following the brush's arc

Tonal depth · MODELLED

The crescent shows arc banding and grey steps outward, and interior modulation is 0.056. The core of the lower-right mass reads as a largely flat dark.

WEAKEST Dark core of the right mass, flat inside

STRONGEST Concentric banding inside the crescent's black

Layering · LEGIBLE

Translucent grey sweeps sit under and beside the black crescent and stay readable. The red drops sit legibly over the paper near the edge. There are about two to three passes.

WEAKEST Right mass grey washes blur into dark

STRONGEST Grey outer arcs under the black crescent

Composition · COMMANDING

The big rotating arc carries the eye around the empty centre and out to the right mass. The red accent ties the two masses together, and the negative space is shaped.

WEAKEST Upper-right paper slightly vacant

STRONGEST Circular sweep shaping the empty central void

Material and surface · SOUND

The ink is controlled overall, and dry-brush streaks at the crescent edges are used well. A vertical drip and diffuse grey spatter around the right mass are minor accidents.

WEAKEST Drip line and grey runs in right mass

STRONGEST Dry-brush edges on crescent's lower tail

FLAWS

5 distinct places, 0 major.

Each read must name every flaw and where it is, in a ninth of the sheet. Here the reads named flaws in 5 distinct places, 10 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.

1 × OTHER“vertical crease/seam line through upper arc”1 × OTHER“faint stray smudges on the upper-right paper”1 × WATER STAIN“grey splashy drips between the two masses”3 × BLOOM, OTHER, WATER STAIN“diffuse grey splash runs left of the right ma…”4 × OTHER, BLOOM“vertical drip line inside lower-right dark ma…”WATER STAINBLOOMOTHER
GEOMETRY

Measured from the 16-bit master.

The previous engine (V22) measured this sheet's master file: 1 principal ink mass traced (cyan), 6 enclosed voids at true size in their grid cells (amber), the main gesture from start to end (red). Of 16 edge segments, 50% crisp, 0% soft or bloomed, 50% broken.

A1B1C1D1E1F1A2B2C2D2E2F2A3B3C3D3E3F3H1H2H3H4H5H6
RULE 1Two tonal steps or fewer

Tonal depth held at rung 1.

5 steps: not applied
RULE 2A major flaw

Material held at rung 1. Mild waves in the unmounted paper are never a flaw.

none named
RULE 3Any quality below 0.5

The rating cannot exceed 4.

lowest 2.0
RULE 4At least two valid reads

A read that breaks the reply format is discarded.

5 of 5 valid
THE ARITHMETIC

V23 rating 7.2.

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.

MEAN RUNG2.32(2.2 + 2.4 + 2.0 + 3.0 + 2.0) ÷ 5
→
RAW5.641 + 2 × 2.32
→
RATING7.25 + 2.086 × (5.64 − 4.60)