--- title: "T_399, full record | Crucible Year" url: https://peteryuill.art/archive/works/T_399 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_399 [The work as shown](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_399). Every value below comes from vae.db, the master database of the Crucible Year. ## Recorded - **Date:** 2026.10.26, day 302 - **Size:** 97 × 180 cm - **Paper:** S13, Tianxuan Ge Dot Ink Becomes Gold, semi-cooked (self-sized), aged - **Inks:** MB6, MB8, MB9, MB10, MC - **Phase:** P4 S14 - **Shown on the site:** yes (V23 rating of 5.0 or higher) ## Measured · V23 (v23.11) - **V23 rating:** 6.7 - **Form:** 2 - **Tonal depth:** 2 - **Layering:** 3 - **Composition:** 2 - **Material and surface:** 2 - **Ink cover:** 90% - **Dark share:** 73% - **Tonal steps:** 3 - **Flaws named by the reads:** water stain 5, other 4, bloom 2 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:** 5.75 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 ## 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](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_399] ![T_399, tone-stretched] ![T_399, classed by brightness] 90% of the sheet carries ink TONAL STEPS ## 3 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: 0.053 (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 2 MODELLED 2 MODELLED 2 MODELLED 2 MODELLED 2 MODELLED 2.0 Layering 3 ORDERED 3 ORDERED 3 ORDERED 3 ORDERED 3 ORDERED 3.0 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 “This is a radial, layered sheet in R3's mode, with legible translucent passes on the right. It is heavier and more crowded, with a blunt, flat-ish left slab and minor specks near the central gap.” Form · BUILT Arc bands around the central white hole hold their walls and follow the brush's travel. The big left rectangle and the top-right bar are stiff, blunt slabs. WEAKEST Bulky rectangular slab dominating the left half STRONGEST Curved arc bands circling the white core Tonal depth · MODELLED The right arcs step through several translucent greys. The left black mass is only mottled (modulation 0.053), and its darks read as surface, not depth. WEAKEST Left dark block is nearly uniform inside STRONGEST Stepped translucent greys in the right-side arcs Layering · ORDERED Many translucent wedge and arc passes overlap on the right and can be read in order. The overlaps build radial depth, much like R3. WEAKEST Left block covers the earlier arcs beneath it STRONGEST Overlapping fan of wedges on the right Composition · WORKING The radial movement and the white core with its vertical cut give the sheet direction. With 90% coverage it is crowded, and the left block sits dead and heavy. WEAKEST Heavy left block crowds the left half STRONGEST Radial sweep around the white core and vertical split Material and surface · SOUND The ink is controlled overall. There are small pale specks and blotches in the left-centre dark beside the vertical gap, and a minor dark spot at the lower left. WEAKEST Pale specks inside the dark mass near the gap STRONGEST Clean edges on the translucent wedges at right FLAWS ## 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, 11 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. 3 steps: not 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 2.0 RULE 4 At least two valid reads A read that breaks the reply format is discarded. 5 of 5 valid THE ARITHMETIC ## V23 rating 6.7. 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. MEAN RUNG 2.20 (2.0 + 2.0 + 3.0 + 2.0 + 2.0) ÷ 5 → RAW 5.40 1 + 2 × 2.20 → RATING 6.7 5 + 2.086 × (5.40 − 4.60) ## Where next [Every record the full archive](https://peteryuill.art/archive)[2026.10.26 every painting from this date](https://peteryuill.art/days/2026-10-26)