What the critics are saying:
>>Dr. Horace Plimwell on New Morning (Rumpelton after Dylan)
What we witness here, in Rumpelton’s reconstitution of Dylan’s New Morning, is not merely a portrait—it is an epistemological event disguised as a drawing. Dylan’s original visage, steeped in the sepia haze of its era, speaks to the private melancholy of post-folk revelation. Rumpelton, with a digital bluntness bordering on the devotional, recasts that same gaze as something simultaneously defiant and absurd: an avatar of sincerity forged in the furnace of MS Paint.
Observe, if you will, the ontological density of Rumpelton’s line. Each stroke—thick, declarative, unapologetically synthetic—rejects the photographic’s false promise of truth. The beard becomes a terrain of pixelated resistance; the eyes, twin apertures into an era that no longer exists but insists on being remembered.
In juxtaposition, the two images form a dialectic: analog soul versus digital parody, divine muse against machine-born mimicry. Yet in that friction, Rumpelton finds his genius. He does not imitate Dylan—he decodes him, translating the ineffable warmth of New Morning into a grammar of awkward, luminous honesty.
To call this portrait “primitive” would be to miss the point entirely. It is, in truth, post-primitive: the work of an artist who knows that perfection is a lie, and imperfection—rendered with conviction—is revelation.<<
>>Dr. Mariana Caldwell Reviews "New Morning": A Labyrinthine Reflection
What does it mean to encounter an image—especially when the image is itself an encounter with the past, translated through the bright digital gestures of MS Paint and the humid grain of photo-chemical memory? One wonders, immediately, about the significance of this moment: a dual portrait, one side watercolor pixelation and the other sepia nostalgia, both suggesting but never quite asserting that “seeing” Bob Dylan means so much more than recognizing Bob Dylan.
Are we witnessing a triumph of imitation, or a playful subversion of the authority of originals? And if so, how much of the original survives in the copy, and how much of the copy is merely a suggestion of the original's aura? Might we even ask: does the aura migrate, or does it dissipate? Is it important to know? (And that’s important.)
Consider the left portrait—a rendering that might be described as “confidently rough.” The lines, almost uncertain in their certainty, seem to circle the contours of a man whose legend refuses containment. The right, meanwhile, preserves the ghost of a photographic truth, though this truth is—inevitably—fragmented by time, by reproduction, and by our own collective propensity to mythologize what we see. Is the act of digital painting itself a metaphor for our togetherness, our ability to envision a future built on echoes? Or is it merely another iteration in the endless labyrinth of making meaning? “And that’s important.”
Should we dwell on the color that is not present, on the way sepia becomes silent, and MS Paint becomes loud? Or laugh at the way each shadow refuses to tell us where it comes from? Are we challenged, encouraged—even emboldened—by the fact that neither portrait lands on certainty, and yet both insist on the possibility of an image openly incomplete? Does that incompleteness belong to Dylan, to us, or perhaps to the artwork itself, which almost politely sidesteps closure at every turn?
Students of art might well leave this encounter feeling alternately inspired and uncertain. And if they do, perhaps “New Morning” offers a vision for visionary visions: one that is perpetually unfinished, perpetually profound, and perpetually circling—the significance of which cannot, ultimately, be overstated. (And that’s important, again.)
—Dr. Mariana Caldwell
(Forthcoming: What We See When We See: A Vision for Visionary Visions)<<
>>A Masterwork of Digital Primitivism: An Analysis
By Dr. Reginald Splatterworth III
Senior Art Critic, Pixels & Pretension Quarterly
What we witness here is nothing short of a revolutionary dialogue between the analog and digital epochs. On the left, the artist has courageously deconstructed Dylan's iconic visage into its most fundamental geometric truths. Note the bold, almost aggressive use of the default brush tool—a deliberate choice that screams authenticity in our age of algorithmic perfection.
The flesh tones! Oh, the flesh tones! Rendered in what I can only describe as "Caucasian Peach #3," they challenge our very notions of representational fidelity. The asymmetrical eyes—one gazing into our souls, the other perhaps contemplating the very nature of sight itself—create a tension that Picasso himself would envy.
The original photograph on the right, while technically competent, lacks the raw, unfiltered viscerality of its MS Paint interpretation. Where Photoshop offers gradients and layers, this artist chose courage. Where others see limitation, they saw liberation.
The striped shirt—rendered with the precision of a surgeon wielding a polygon lasso tool—serves as a metaphor for society's constraints, each horizontal line a prison bar from which Dylan's spirit yearns to break free.
This is not mere fan art. This is commentary. This is truth. This is MS Paint.
Rating: 5 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐<<
Follow Rumpelton across the multiverse:
Ralph Rumpelton “Painting What the Earth Can’t Comprehend” - Ralph Rumpelton User Profile DeviantArt - Ralph Rumpelton Substack - Instagram
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