T_391
The work as shown. 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 (v23.11)
- V23 rating
- 5.8
- Form
- 2
- Tonal depth
- 2
- Layering
- 2
- Composition
- 2
- Material and surface
- 2
- Ink cover
- 80%
- Dark share
- 69%
- Tonal steps
- 5
- Flaws named by the reads
- other 6, ring 1
How the number was made
Read by the Visual Analysis Engine, version 23.11, on 2026.10.26: 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: 0.051 (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
“Two layered black masses converge across a spattered gap, recalling R3's fans but heavier. The black cores are largely flat, and the left block is slab-like. The sheet is ordinary throughout and closest to R2.”
Right mass is a coherent arc following brush travel. The left mass is a heavy near-rectangle, stiff and slab-like, with a ragged lower edge.
WEAKEST Left block: bulky slab with blunt rectangular outline
STRONGEST Right arc fan whose curved outline follows the sweep
Stepped grey bands frame both cores. The tone-stretched view shows grain, and modulation of 0.051 is only just above flat. The black cores read largely uniform in colour.
WEAKEST Left black core reads nearly flat in colour view
STRONGEST Right fan's stepped grey bands around black core
Two or three translucent passes stack legibly at the edges of both masses. The black top pass hides most of what lies beneath.
WEAKEST Black cores cover earlier passes rather than revealing them
STRONGEST Right fan's translucent stacked arcs at the outer edge
Two masses face each other across a spattered central channel, which gives tension and a direction. With about 80% coverage the sheet is heavy, and the left block sits static.
WEAKEST Two heavy blocks crowd the frame with little breathing room
STRONGEST Spatter-filled central gap between the two converging masses
Ink is controlled, with dry-brush edges and spatter. A small stray blot sits at top centre. There is no tide line or stain inside the dark masses. Paper cockling is ignored.
WEAKEST Small blot near top centre
STRONGEST Dry-brush feathered edges on the right fan's lower arc
2 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 2 distinct places, 7 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 5.8.
Engine v23.11, 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.