T_417
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
- 6.34
- Read half
- 28.5
- Measured half
- 34.9
Read · V23 (v23.13)
- V23 rating
- 5.7
- Form
- 2
- Tonal depth
- 2
- Layering
- 2
- Composition
- 2
- Material and surface
- 1.8
- Ink cover
- 77%
- Dark share
- 74%
- Tonal steps
- 5
- Flaws named by the reads
- other 10, overwork 2
Measured · V24, from the 16-bit TIFF
- Mass
- 8.7 of 10
- Tone
- 6.2 of 14
- Void
- 4.8 of 8
- Flow
- 8.8 of 10
- Balance
- 6.4 of 8
- Measured half
- 34.9 of 50
- Mass width in mm
- rung 5 of 5
- Mass width against the sheet
- rung 4 of 5
- Evenness of that width
- rung 4 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 2 of 5
- Spread across tonal bands
- rung 1 of 5
- Voids gathered, not scattered
- rung 3 of 5
- Directions across the sheet
- rung 4 of 5
- Local gesture and edge
- rung 5 of 5
- Balance on the sheet
- rung 4 of 5
- Mass width
- 186 mm
- Depth of the darks (p75 density)
- 1.72
- Largest void, radius
- 213 mm
- Direction alignment
- 0.17
- Left and right asymmetry
- 0.54
- Resolution
- 3.94 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.
5 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: 0.064 (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 bold, ordinary sheet: a huge black arc with a clear sweep and legible violet and grey rims, but its bulk, near-flat interior and blunt blocks keep it from the concentric depth of R3.”
Central arc holds firm curved walls and tracks the sweep, but reads as a bulky filled fan; top and bottom-left blocks are stiff, blunt slabs.
WEAKEST Blunt slab block cut off at bottom left
STRONGEST Great black arc whose outline follows the sweep of travel
Lower arc and rim bands step through greys; the main black shows faint arcs and a rightward deepening only when stretched; bottom-left block stays flat.
WEAKEST Bottom-left block, nearly flat black inside
STRONGEST Lower inner arc with stepped translucent greys
Violet, translucent grey and black passes read at the rims and lower arc, where the vertical stroke shows through; the dense centre hides the sequence.
WEAKEST Black arc covers most earlier passes across the centre
STRONGEST Vertical stroke and grey steps legible through lower arc
Arc drives across the frame and shapes the paper above and the pocket below; its sheer mass dominates, and the bottom-left block only loosely counterweights it.
WEAKEST Heavy central mass; detached bottom-left block feels parked
STRONGEST Sweeping arc carrying the eye from left to lower right
Ink is controlled with dry-brush fringes at lower right and violet rims; small pale specks at bottom left and fine crease lines at right stay minor.
WEAKEST Pale specks in the bottom-left black block
STRONGEST Dry-brush violet and black fringes along the lower right
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, 12 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.
5 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 1.8A read that breaks the reply format is discarded.
5 of 5 validV23 rating 5.7.
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.