T_410
The work as shown. Every value below comes from vae.db, the master database of the Crucible Year.
Recorded
- Date
- 2026.11.03, day 310
- Size
- 97 × 180 cm
- Paper
- S14, Half-Cooked Red Star Mo She 6-Foot Bark Xuan Paper, self-sized
- Inks
- MB6, MB8, MB9, MB10, MC
- Phase
- P4 S14
- Shown on the site
- yes (combined score of 5.0 or more)
The combined score
- Combined score
- 5.75
- Read half
- 26.5
- Measured half
- 31
Read · V23 (v23.13)
- V23 rating
- 5.3
- Form
- 2
- Tonal depth
- 2
- Layering
- 2.4
- Composition
- 2
- Material and surface
- 1
- Ink cover
- 89%
- Dark share
- 55%
- Tonal steps
- 6
- Flaws named by the reads
- other 11, mud 1, bloom 3, ring 5, water stain 2
Measured · V24, from the 16-bit TIFF
- Mass
- 4.8 of 10
- Tone
- 10.6 of 14
- Void
- 4.8 of 8
- Flow
- 2.8 of 10
- Balance
- 8 of 8
- Measured half
- 31 of 50
- Mass width in mm
- rung 3 of 5
- Mass width against the sheet
- rung 3 of 5
- Evenness of that width
- rung 1 of 5
- Depth of the darks
- rung 5 of 5
- Black plateau
- rung 2 of 5
- Step from mid to dark
- rung 4 of 5
- Evenness inside the darks
- rung 2 of 5
- Spread across tonal bands
- rung 5 of 5
- Voids gathered, not scattered
- rung 3 of 5
- Directions across the sheet
- rung 1 of 5
- Local gesture and edge
- rung 2 of 5
- Balance on the sheet
- rung 5 of 5
- Mass width
- 118 mm
- Depth of the darks (p75 density)
- 1.81
- Largest void, radius
- 166 mm
- Direction alignment
- 0.44
- Left and right asymmetry
- 0.33
- Resolution
- 3.89 px per mm
How the number was made
Read by the Visual Analysis Engine, version 23.13, on 2026.11.03: 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.
6 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: 0.063 (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
“Layered radial fan around a pale central void, with legible violet and grey passes above; bulky, flat-leaning black masses dominate below, and a crack and scrape damage the right mass.”
Radial blocks and arcs hold coherent walls, but both lower black masses are heavy slabs, filled rather than travelled, with a clumsy step at the left mass's top edge.
WEAKEST Bulky lower-left black mass with a clumsy stepped shoulder
STRONGEST Upper-left arc band following the fan's sweep
Upper blocks and dry-brush give a real grey range; right black mass shows mottling, but the lower-left black reads flat in colour, its stretched texture mostly paper relief.
WEAKEST Lower-left black mass, near-flat apart from paper crinkle
STRONGEST Stepped greys of the central and upper fan blocks
Violet, grey blocks and dry-brush stay legible across the upper fan, but the two black masses bury the sequence below and a murky greenish overlap clouds the upper left.
WEAKEST Lower black masses simply cover the earlier passes
STRONGEST Violet bands under translucent grey blocks, upper left and centre
The arch and shaped central void direct the eye downward through the sheet, but near-symmetrical black masses sit static and bottom-heavy, crowding the lower corners.
WEAKEST Two heavy black masses weigh down the bottom corners
STRONGEST Fan converging on the pale central opening with spatter
A dark vertical crease and a white-flecked scrape sit in the right black mass, visible in colour; a cloudy greenish patch muddies the upper-left block. Centre dry-brush is controlled.
WEAKEST Crack and abrasion inside the right black mass
STRONGEST Dry-brush streaks breaking over paper in the centre
5 distinct places, 2 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, 22 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.
6 steps: not appliedMaterial held at rung 1. Mild waves in the unmounted paper are never a flaw.
8 major flaws: appliedThe rating cannot exceed 4.
lowest 1.0A read that breaks the reply format is discarded.
5 of 5 validV23 rating 5.3.
Engine v23.13, 5 reads. Fixed arithmetic, the same for every painting; the constants were set on a stratified sample of 24 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.