Crucible Year Peter Yuill
Archive · full record

T_356

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

Recorded

Date
2026.06.14, day 168
Size
97 × 180 cm
Paper
S10, Red Star Mo She Imitation Antique Chu bark, Exhibition Edition
Inks
MB4, MB5, MB6
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
5
Form
2.2
Tonal depth
1
Layering
2.8
Composition
2
Material and surface
1
Ink cover
85%
Dark share
64%
Tonal steps
2
Flaws named by the reads
ring 5, other 5
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
8
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_356T_356, tone-stretchedT_356, classed by brightness
85%of the sheet carries ink
Black 64%Grey 32% SHARE OF THE INK, NOT OF THE SHEET
TONAL STEPS

2 families of tone.

Every inked pixel's brightness in 64 bins, smoothed; each circled peak holds at least 4% of the ink. Two or fewer: Tonal depth is held at the bottom rung whatever the model reads. A dense sheet of many translucent passes can count low here, so Layering is left to the reads. Life inside the black: 0.046 (under 0.045 reads as flat).

0.300.7512 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
Form3FLUENT2BUILT2BUILT2BUILT2BUILT2.2
Tonal depth2MODELLED2MODELLED2MODELLED2MODELLED2MODELLED2.0
Layering3ORDERED2LEGIBLE3ORDERED3ORDERED3ORDERED2.8
Composition2WORKING2WORKING2WORKING2WORKING2WORKING2.0
Material and surface1FLAWED1FLAWED1FLAWED1FLAWED1FLAWED1.0

READ 1, IN ITS OWN WORDS

“This sheet uses the same radial-arc language as R3, with legible translucent layering, but it is more crowded and its darks are flatter. A visible ring inside the lower-right dark mass lowers the material score.”

Form · FLUENT

The radial bands keep firm walls and curve with the stroke on the left and through the centre. The right-side slabs are squarer but still read as made marks.

WEAKEST Blocky rectangular slabs in the right-hand mass

STRONGEST Radiating arc bands at left that follow the brush's travel

Tonal depth · MODELLED

Only two tonal steps were measured, and interior modulation (0.046) is barely above the flat line. Streaks and banding show in the arcs, but the dense lower-right mass reads flat.

WEAKEST Lower-right dark block is nearly flat inside

STRONGEST Banded grain inside the upper-left fan of arcs

Layering · ORDERED

Many translucent passes overlap in sequence across both fans, and their edges stay readable. In the darkest right areas the overlaps thicken and are harder to tell apart.

WEAKEST Dense right overlaps where passes merge into dark

STRONGEST Stacked translucent arc bands on the left fan

Composition · WORKING

A clear sweep of arcs turns around the pale opening at the bottom centre. With 85% of the sheet inked, the right side is jammed and the empty paper has little shape.

WEAKEST Crowded, heavy right half with little paper left

STRONGEST Sweeping radial arc around the pale central opening

Material and surface · FLAWED

A circular ring/tide mark sits inside the dark block at the lower right and shows in both the colour and stretched views. Small spots appear at the top right.

WEAKEST Ring mark inside lower-right dark mass

STRONGEST Dry-brush streaking along the arc bands

FLAWS

2 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 2 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. A major flaw holds Material and surface at rung 1.

5 × OTHER“small dark specks on the paper at the top rig…”5 × RING · MAJOR“circular ring inside the lower-right dark blo…”RINGOTHERMAJOR
GEOMETRY

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 14 edge segments, 71% crisp, 21% soft or bloomed, 7% broken.

A1B1C1D1E1F1A2B2C2D2E2F2A3B3C3D3E3F3H1H2H3H4H5
RULE 1Two tonal steps or fewer

Tonal depth held at rung 1.

2 steps: applied
RULE 2A major flaw

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

5 major flaws: applied
RULE 3Any quality below 0.5

The rating cannot exceed 4.

lowest 1.0
RULE 4At least two valid reads

A read that breaks the reply format is discarded.

5 of 5 valid

Caps the code applied: {"run_id":"T_356","cap_no":1,"read_no":1,"cap_text":"sample 1: T 2->1: tonal_steps=2 (<=2)"}; {"run_id":"T_356","cap_no":2,"read_no":2,"cap_text":"sample 2: T 2->1: tonal_steps=2 (<=2)"}; {"run_id":"T_356","cap_no":3,"read_no":3,"cap_text":"sample 3: T 2->1: tonal_steps=2 (<=2)"}; {"run_id":"T_356","cap_no":4,"read_no":4,"cap_text":"sample 4: T 2->1: tonal_steps=2 (<=2)"}; {"run_id":"T_356","cap_no":5,"read_no":5,"cap_text":"sample 5: T 2->1: tonal_steps=2 (<=2)"}.

THE ARITHMETIC

V23 rating 5.0.

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 RUNG2.00(2.2 + 2.0 + 2.8 + 2.0 + 1.0) ÷ 5
→
RAW5.001 + 2 × 2.00
→
RATING5.85 + 2.086 × (5.00 − 4.60)