--- title: "T_403, full record | Crucible Year" url: https://peteryuill.art/archive/works/T_403 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_403 [The work as shown](https://peteryuill.art/works/T_403). 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:** 7.2 - **Form:** 2.6 - **Tonal depth:** 2 - **Layering:** 3 - **Composition:** 2 - **Material and surface:** 2 - **Ink cover:** 86% - **Dark share:** 58% - **Tonal steps:** 4 - **Flaws named by the reads:** other 15 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:** 6.5 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_403] ![T_403, tone-stretched] ![T_403, classed by brightness] 86% of the sheet carries ink TONAL STEPS ## 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: 0.042 (under 0.045 reads as flat). FIVE READS ## 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 READ 2 READ 3 READ 4 READ 5 MEAN Form 2 BUILT 3 FLUENT 3 FLUENT 3 FLUENT 2 BUILT 2.6 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 “Twin radial fans of layered translucent bands, close in idiom to R3 but more crowded, with flatter dark cores and blockier slabs; layering is the strength, minor splatter and an edge crease.” Form · BUILT Radial blocks and arcs are coherent, walls hold; upper-left and right fans read as stacked slabs rather than strokes following brush travel; inner arcs are fluent. WEAKEST Bulky rectangular slabs crowding upper-left fan STRONGEST Thin concentric arcs hugging the two white circles Tonal depth · MODELLED Wide range of stacked greys at the fan edges, but dark modulation 0.042 measures flat; main black blocks left and right centre are largely uniform inside. WEAKEST Flat black interior of large upper-left block STRONGEST Stepped translucent greys in right fan's outer rings Layering · ORDERED Many translucent radial passes overlap in readable order, building depth outward from both circles; some dark centres absorb earlier passes. WEAKEST Dense dark core where passes merge, right fan STRONGEST Overlapping translucent radial bands, outer left fan Composition · WORKING Two radial centres give strong movement and the white circles are shaped, but 86% coverage crowds the sheet; empty paper is mostly a top strip. WEAKEST Crowded lower band with little paper left STRONGEST Twin white circles anchoring radiating fans Material and surface · SOUND Ink controlled, edges crisp; small splatter in right circle, stray dot bottom right, and a crack/crease at top-right edge, all minor and off main masses. WEAKEST Ink splash inside right white circle STRONGEST Dry-brush fraying at upper fan edges 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. 4 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 7.2. 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. MEAN RUNG 2.32 (2.6 + 2.0 + 3.0 + 2.0 + 2.0) ÷ 5 → RAW 5.64 1 + 2 × 2.32 → RATING 7.2 5 + 2.086 × (5.64 − 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)