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
Peter's own rating
- Rating
- 9
“There is always something that can be done better.”Peter Yuill · 2026.07.02
Older engine
- V10C
- 9
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.


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).
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 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.”
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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.
Tonal depth held at rung 1.
5 steps: not appliedMaterial held at rung 1. Mild waves in the unmounted paper are never a flaw.
none namedThe rating cannot exceed 4.
lowest 2.0A read that breaks the reply format is discarded.
5 of 5 validV23 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.