--- title: "T_388, full record | Crucible Year" url: https://peteryuill.art/archive/works/T_388 description: "Crucible Year: a continuous year of sumi ink painting on paper by Peter Yuill, begun 29 December 2025." source: generated from the Crucible Year master database --- Archive · full record # T_388 [The work as shown](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_388). Every value below comes from vae.db, the master database of the Crucible Year. ## Recorded - **Date:** 2026.10.16, day 292 - **Size:** 97 × 180 cm - **Paper:** S14, Half-Cooked Red Star Mo She 6-Foot Bark Xuan Paper, self-sized - **Inks:** MB6, MB8, MB9, MB10 - **Phase:** P4 S14 - **Shown on the site:** yes (V23 rating of 5.0 or higher) ## Measured · V23 (v23.8) - **V23 rating:** 5 - **Form:** 2 - **Tonal depth:** 1 - **Layering:** 2 - **Composition:** 2 - **Material and surface:** 2 - **Ink cover:** 84% - **Dark share:** 75% - **Tonal steps:** 1 - **Flaws named by the reads:** dead ink 5, other 10 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. ## How the number was made Read by the Visual Analysis Engine, version 23.8, on 2026.10.16: 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](https://peteryuill.art/method). 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_388] ![T_388, tone-stretched] ![T_388, classed by brightness] 84% of the sheet carries ink TONAL STEPS ## 1 family 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: 0.040 (under 0.045 reads as flat). FIVE READS ## Five reads, one answer. Each quality placed on its ladder by each read, and the mean the engine keeps. READ 1 READ 2 READ 3 READ 4 READ 5 MEAN Form 2 BUILT 2 BUILT 2 BUILT 2 BUILT 2 BUILT 2.0 Tonal depth 1 THIN 1 THIN 1 THIN 1 THIN 1 THIN 1.0 Layering 2 LEGIBLE 2 LEGIBLE 2 LEGIBLE 2 LEGIBLE 2 LEGIBLE 2.0 Composition 2 WORKING 2 WORKING 2 WORKING 2 WORKING 2 WORKING 2.0 Material and surface 2 SOUND 2 SOUND 2 SOUND 2 SOUND 2 SOUND 2.0 ### READ 1, IN ITS OWN WORDS “A stepped-arc spiral in the R3 manner, but a vast flat black core swallows the layering and tonal life. The arc edges and the spiral eye work; the overall sheet is ordinary to below average.” Form · BUILT Stepped arcs at the upper rim and left edge follow the brush's travel. The large central-right black mass is filled in and has lost its stroke shape. WEAKEST Central dark mass reads as a bulky filled slab STRONGEST Stepped arc strokes around the spiral's left rim Tonal depth · THIN Interior modulation is 0.040, which counts as flat, and there is one tonal step. Greys appear only at the outer edges of the arcs. The core mass is a uniform black. WEAKEST Huge central-right black mass, flat inside STRONGEST Translucent grey steps along the top-right rim Layering · LEGIBLE Several passes overlap legibly in the stepped rim at the top right and in the lower-left arcs. In the centre, the later black covers the earlier passes. WEAKEST Central mass buries the earlier passes STRONGEST Overlapping translucent bands at the top-right rim Composition · WORKING The spiral gives a clear rotational movement and the white lower left is shaped. At 84% ink coverage, the right half is jammed with dead black. WEAKEST Dark mass crowds the right and bottom STRONGEST Spiral eye leading into the white lower-left void Material and surface · SOUND There are small drips and spatters at the upper and lower left, away from the masses. Paper creasing shows in the tone-stretched view. No tide lines or rings inside the dark. WEAKEST Dead, uniform black in the centre STRONGEST Dry-brush edges on the stepped arcs FLAWS ## 4 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 4 distinct places, 15 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. RULE 1 Two tonal steps or fewer Tonal depth held at rung 1. 1 steps: applied RULE 2 A major flaw Material held at rung 1. Mild waves in the unmounted paper are never a flaw. none named RULE 3 Any quality below 0.5 The rating cannot exceed 4. lowest 1.0 RULE 4 At least two valid reads A read that breaks the reply format is discarded. 5 of 5 valid 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 RUNG 1.80 (2.0 + 1.0 + 2.0 + 2.0 + 2.0) ÷ 5 → RAW 4.60 1 + 2 × 1.80 → RATING 5.0 5 + 2.086 × (4.60 − 4.60) ## Where next [Every record the full archive](https://peteryuill.art/archive)[2026.10.16 every painting from this date](https://peteryuill.art/days/2026-10-16)