T_402
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
- Phase
- P4 S14
- Shown on the site
- yes (V23 rating of 5.0 or higher)
Measured · V23 (v23.11)
- V23 rating
- 6.3
- Form
- 2.4
- Tonal depth
- 2
- Layering
- 3
- Composition
- 2
- Material and surface
- 1.2
- Ink cover
- 90%
- Dark share
- 68%
- Tonal steps
- 3
- Flaws named by the reads
- other 5, water stain 9
Peter's own rating
- Rating
- 6.5
“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.
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: 0.049 (under 0.045 reads as flat).
Five reads, agreeing on 3 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
“This is a close relative of R3, with layered radial fans either side of a central gap. It is heavier and more crowded, its right dark mass is less modelled inside, and small drips sit at the bottom centre.”
Fan-shaped passes follow the brush's curved travel with clean, dry-edged ends at the central gap; the right dark block is bulky but still holds its arc.
WEAKEST Heavy dark fan block in right mass, slightly slab-like
STRONGEST Stepped arc bands of the left fan
The left fan steps its density across overlapping bands. The right dark mass shows only faint grain and has modulation of 0.049, barely above flat.
WEAKEST Right dark mass interior, close to one dense tone
STRONGEST Left fan's stepped greys from pale rim to dark
Many translucent arc passes overlap in a readable order on both sides. The overlaps build depth, though the right side's darkest layers are hard to tell apart.
WEAKEST Deep right overlaps where passes merge toward black
STRONGEST Translucent overlapping fan passes on the left
Two radiating fans on either side of a vertical gap create a strong focus, but 90% ink coverage leaves the edges crowded. The right mass is heavy and sits weightily.
WEAKEST Crowded heavy right mass with little breathing paper
STRONGEST Narrow central gap splitting the two fans
The ink is controlled and the edge grain is well used. Small drips sit in the paper at the bottom centre, and faint droplet spots appear in the right dark mass, mostly in the stretched view.
WEAKEST Drip spatters at the bottom of the central gap
STRONGEST Dry-brush grain at the fan edges near the gap
3 distinct places, 1 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, 14 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. A major flaw holds Material and surface at rung 1.
Tonal depth held at rung 1.
3 steps: not appliedMaterial held at rung 1. Mild waves in the unmounted paper are never a flaw.
1 major flaw: appliedThe rating cannot exceed 4.
lowest 1.2A read that breaks the reply format is discarded.
5 of 5 validV23 rating 6.3.
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.