T_418
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
- Phase
- P4 S14
- Shown on the site
- yes (combined score of 5.0 or more)
The combined score
- Combined score
- 7.18
- Read half
- 34
- Measured half
- 37.8
Read · V23 (v23.13)
- V23 rating
- 6.8
- Form
- 2
- Tonal depth
- 2
- Layering
- 3
- Composition
- 2.2
- Material and surface
- 2
- Ink cover
- 83%
- Dark share
- 40%
- Tonal steps
- 3
- Flaws named by the reads
- other 20, water stain 3
Measured · V24, from the 16-bit TIFF
- Mass
- 10 of 10
- Tone
- 7 of 14
- Void
- 6.4 of 8
- Flow
- 6.4 of 10
- Balance
- 8 of 8
- Measured half
- 37.8 of 50
- Mass width in mm
- rung 5 of 5
- Mass width against the sheet
- rung 5 of 5
- Evenness of that width
- rung 5 of 5
- Depth of the darks
- rung 2 of 5
- Black plateau
- rung 3 of 5
- Step from mid to dark
- rung 1 of 5
- Evenness inside the darks
- rung 4 of 5
- Spread across tonal bands
- rung 3 of 5
- Voids gathered, not scattered
- rung 4 of 5
- Directions across the sheet
- rung 4 of 5
- Local gesture and edge
- rung 2 of 5
- Balance on the sheet
- rung 5 of 5
- Mass width
- 187 mm
- Depth of the darks (p75 density)
- 1.28
- Largest void, radius
- 174 mm
- Direction alignment
- 0.21
- Left and right asymmetry
- 0.41
- 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.
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: 0.030 (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 layered fan of translucent arcs turning from a cropped eye, with strong ordering and shaped paper, held back by flat darks and slab-like lower-right blocks; minor crackle and blot only.”
Left and upper arcs follow the brush's travel with holding walls, but lower-right blocks and the short dark band sit as stiff, filled rectangles.
WEAKEST Slab-like dark rectangle at lower right, bulky and unstroked
STRONGEST Concentric arc bands sweeping from the left around the eye
Arcs at centre left and the upper-right block show banding and grain, but central and lower-right darks are nearly uniform; measured modulation 0.030 confirms flat darks.
WEAKEST Flat dark central mass and lower-right block
STRONGEST Banded, grainy arcs at centre left and upper right
Many translucent passes step from pale outer bands to dark inner ones; overlaps stay readable across the fan, the sequence thickening only in the lower-right dark.
WEAKEST Lower-right overlaps closing toward one dark value
STRONGEST Translucent stepped overlaps along the upper-right fan edge
The fan turns from the cropped white eye up to the right; the serrated edge shapes the open upper-left paper, carrying the eye across despite lower-right density.
WEAKEST Crowded block stack in the lower-right corner
STRONGEST Fan rotating from the bottom-left eye against open upper-left paper
Ink is controlled with clean edges and some grain; crackle lines, a small blot at centre and a white nick are minor and do not disrupt principal darks.
WEAKEST Crackle lines and small blot within mid-grey arcs
STRONGEST Dry-brush grain in the lower-centre block and upper-right band
5 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 5 distinct places, 23 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.
Tonal depth held at rung 1.
3 steps: not appliedMaterial held at rung 1. Mild waves in the unmounted paper are never a flaw.
none namedThe rating cannot exceed 4.
lowest 2.0A read that breaks the reply format is discarded.
5 of 5 validV23 rating 6.8.
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.