T_401
The work as shown. 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
- 8.2
- Form
- 3
- Tonal depth
- 2
- Layering
- 3
- Composition
- 2.8
- Material and surface
- 2
- Ink cover
- 88%
- Dark share
- 61%
- Tonal steps
- 4
- Flaws named by the reads
- other 9, water stain 1
Peter's own rating
- Rating
- 6
“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.
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.
4 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: 0.054 (under 0.045 reads as flat).
Five reads, agreeing on 4 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 1, IN ITS OWN WORDS
“A radial composition of translucent arc segments, close to R3 in idiom. The layering is legible and the arcs are fluent, but some dark interiors are flatter and there are minor specks on the paper. Slightly below R3.”
Fan and arc segments follow the brush's radial travel with clean, holding walls; top-left blocks are squarer and bulkier, but the principal arcs are fluent.
WEAKEST Blunt rectangular blocks stacked in top-left quarter
STRONGEST Curved arc-band segments sweeping round the central void
Stepped greys from the overlaps throughout; top-right mass is textured inside; the bottom-centre black fan is smoother and close to flat; modulation 0.054 is moderate.
WEAKEST Central lower dark fan fairly even inside
STRONGEST Top-right dark fan with grain and banded density
Many translucent passes overlap in a readable order around the circle; each band edge is still visible through later ones, which builds depth across the sheet.
WEAKEST Dense top-left stacking where passes blur together
STRONGEST Translucent overlapping arcs in lower-left and bottom centre
Arcs rotate around a shaped white void that works as hard as the ink, carrying the eye round the sheet; the bottom-right fragment is a bit detached.
WEAKEST Isolated small block at bottom right
STRONGEST Radial swirl around off-centre white void
Ink is controlled with crisp edges; small spots and specks sit in the paper right of centre and in the central void, away from the principal masses.
WEAKEST Small speckles and blots in right-side paper
STRONGEST Grainy dry edges on top-right fan
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.
4 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 8.2.
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.