T_414
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
- 5.22
- Read half
- 21
- Measured half
- 31.2
Read · V23 (v23.13)
- V23 rating
- 4.2
- Form
- 2
- Tonal depth
- 1
- Layering
- 2
- Composition
- 2
- Material and surface
- 1
- Ink cover
- 79%
- Dark share
- 73%
- Tonal steps
- 2
- Flaws named by the reads
- other 16, bloom 1, water stain 7, overwork 1
Measured · V24, from the 16-bit TIFF
- Mass
- 7.4 of 10
- Tone
- 7.4 of 14
- Void
- 3.2 of 8
- Flow
- 8.4 of 10
- Balance
- 4.8 of 8
- Measured half
- 31.2 of 50
- Mass width in mm
- rung 4 of 5
- Mass width against the sheet
- rung 4 of 5
- Evenness of that width
- rung 3 of 5
- Depth of the darks
- rung 4 of 5
- Black plateau
- rung 1 of 5
- Step from mid to dark
- rung 1 of 5
- Evenness inside the darks
- rung 3 of 5
- Spread across tonal bands
- rung 3 of 5
- Voids gathered, not scattered
- rung 2 of 5
- Directions across the sheet
- rung 5 of 5
- Local gesture and edge
- rung 3 of 5
- Balance on the sheet
- rung 3 of 5
- Mass width
- 147 mm
- Depth of the darks (p75 density)
- 1.70
- Largest void, radius
- 229 mm
- Direction alignment
- 0.08
- Left and right asymmetry
- 0.70
- Resolution
- 4.05 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.
2 families of tone.
Every inked pixel's brightness in 64 bins, smoothed; each circled peak holds at least 4% of the ink. Two or fewer: Tonal depth is held at the bottom rung whatever the model reads. A dense sheet of many translucent passes can count low here, so Layering is left to the reads. Life inside the black: 0.056 (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 large black fan with a lower-left wedge and pink dry-brush tails: ordinary, working structure, but heavy dark masses hide layers and tone, and creases in the central black mar the surface.”
Fan segments, inner arc and top-right bar are coherent forms with holding walls; the central fan and lower-left block remain heavy, filled-in masses with stiff straight joins.
WEAKEST Huge central fan and lower-left wedge read as bulky slabs
STRONGEST Inner arc band following the curved travel of the brush
Right segments and arc bands show stepped density; central black shifts only subtly, its modelling mostly visible when stretched. Modulation clears flat, but darks dominate with limited mid-grey range.
WEAKEST Lower-left black wedge, nearly flat inside in colour view
STRONGEST Stepped greys of the right-hand fan segments and inner arc
Pink dry-brush, grey-mauve and black passes read at the fan's edges and lower right; overlaps stay legible there, but the heavy black hides most of the sequence.
WEAKEST Central black pass largely covers earlier passes beneath it
STRONGEST Grey arc overlaps at lower centre and right of fan
Fan sweeps top right to lower centre, countered by lower-left wedge and top-right bar; the paper channel between is shaped, but the dominant black mass sits heavy and dead.
WEAKEST Central black fan crowds the sheet with heavy, static mass
STRONGEST Fan sweep answered by lower-left wedge across shaped paper
Crease and crack lines cross the central black fan, visible in colour at centre; a white speck pierces it, and a pale patch breaks its top edge. Dry-brush handling elsewhere is controlled.
WEAKEST Creases and cracks across the central black mass
STRONGEST Dry-brush pink and grey tails along the fan's edges
3 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 3 distinct places, 25 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.
2 steps: appliedMaterial held at rung 1. Mild waves in the unmounted paper are never a flaw.
2 major flaws: appliedThe rating cannot exceed 4.
lowest 1.0A read that breaks the reply format is discarded.
5 of 5 validCaps the code applied: {"run_id":"T_414","cap_no":1,"read_no":1,"cap_text":"sample 1: T 2->1: tonal_steps=2 (<=2)"}; {"run_id":"T_414","cap_no":2,"read_no":2,"cap_text":"sample 2: T 2->1: tonal_steps=2 (<=2)"}; {"run_id":"T_414","cap_no":3,"read_no":4,"cap_text":"sample 4: T 2->1: tonal_steps=2 (<=2)"}; {"run_id":"T_414","cap_no":4,"read_no":5,"cap_text":"sample 5: T 2->1: tonal_steps=2 (<=2)"}.
V23 rating 4.2.
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.