T_379
The work as shown. Every value below comes from vae.db, the master database of the Crucible Year.
Recorded
- Date
- 2026.09.23, day 269
- Size
- 97 × 180 cm
- Paper
- S14, Half-Cooked Red Star Mo She 6-Foot Bark Xuan Paper
- Inks
- MB6, MB8, MB9, MC
- Phase
- P4 S14
- Shown on the site
- yes (V23 rating of 5.0 or higher)
Measured · V23 (v23.8)
- V23 rating
- 6.7
- Form
- 2
- Tonal depth
- 2
- Layering
- 3
- Composition
- 2
- Material and surface
- 2
- Ink cover
- 88%
- Dark share
- 59%
- Tonal steps
- 5
- Flaws named by the reads
- other 4, dead ink 3, water stain 3
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: 0.042 (under 0.045 reads as flat).
Five reads, one answer.
Each quality placed on its ladder by each read, and the mean the engine keeps.
READ 1, IN ITS OWN WORDS
“A stepped-arc sheet in R3's family with legible translucent layering. It is crowded and heavy, the black core is flat, and the arcs end in blunt slabs, so it sits nearer R2 than R3.”
Arc bands hold their walls and follow the curve of the brush, but the right-centre black block is broad and slab-like, with blunt squared ends.
WEAKEST Bulky blackest arc band at right centre
STRONGEST Stepped arc bands sweeping from left to right
Five tonal steps and graded grey bands, but the dark interior modulation of 0.042 is flat; the core black mass right of centre reads as uniform surface.
WEAKEST Flat black interior right of centre
STRONGEST Graded grey bands in upper right arc
Several translucent arc passes overlap in a readable order from pale outer bands to dark inner ones, like R3; the lower right blacks merge somewhat.
WEAKEST Dense overlaps in lower right blacks
STRONGEST Translucent stepped passes across the upper arcs
The arc gives a clear direction, but 88% ink coverage crowds the frame, the bottom right is a heavy block and the top paper is leftover.
WEAKEST Crowded heavy lower right, little breathing room
STRONGEST Sweeping arc movement left to right
Ink is controlled and the paper crinkle shows in the greys; a small grey blot sits on bare paper at top centre, away from the masses; the left drops look deliberate.
WEAKEST Grey blot splatter at top centre
STRONGEST Crinkle texture in the translucent greys
3 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 3 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.
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 6.7.
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.