Interview Title: “Oil, Pixels, and the Collapse of Civilization”
Participants: Gerald Thimbleton & Ralph Rumpelton
Location: The offices of Beige Canvas Quarterly
Gerald Thimbleton:
Mr. Rumpelton, thank you for joining me. I will begin plainly. You work primarily in MS Paint. Why?
Ralph Rumpelton:
Because it’s there. And because it does exactly what I tell it to do—nothing more. Oil paint wants to collaborate. MS Paint obeys.
Thimbleton:
Oil paint “collaborates” because it possesses depth. History. Resistance. When I see your work described in the same breath as Vincent van Gogh, I regard it as—well—you know my position.
Rumpelton:
Yes. A slap in the face to oil paint. You’ve said so. Several times. Possibly embroidered on a pillow somewhere.
Thimbleton:
Mockery is not rebuttal. Van Gogh bent oil to his will through discipline and suffering. You wield a mouse.
Rumpelton:
Incorrect. I wield a mouse badly. That’s the point. Constraint. Limitation. The refusal of polish. It’s closer to cave painting than salon realism.
Thimbleton:
Cave painting predates oil. It does not excuse abandoning technique.
Rumpelton:
Who says I’ve abandoned it? Suggestion requires discipline. When I “Rumpeltize” a face, I’m reducing it to structural inevitabilities—eyes, nose, tension lines. I’m asking: what’s the minimum required for recognition?
Thimbleton:
Minimums are for building codes, not portraiture.
Rumpelton:
And yet you recognized the subject.
Thimbleton:
Recognition is not transcendence.
Rumpelton:
Transcendence is overrated. I’m after disturbance. Familiarity that feels slightly wrong. Like hearing a symphony played on a toy piano.
Thimbleton:
You are romanticizing deficiency.
Rumpelton:
No, I’m interrogating reverence. Oil painting has had centuries to prove itself. MS Paint has had what—Windows 95? It’s democratic. Anyone can use it. That terrifies people who equate difficulty with virtue.
Thimbleton:
Virtue lies in mastery. The brushstroke contains the history of the hand.
Rumpelton:
And the pixel contains the history of the click. Just because it’s mechanical doesn’t mean it’s soulless.
Thimbleton:
You cannot persuade me that the digital smudge carries the gravitas of impasto.
Rumpelton:
I’m not trying to. I’m saying gravitas might not be the only measure of worth. Sometimes absurdity is the more honest register.
Thimbleton:
So your project is satire?
Rumpelton:
Partly. But satire can love what it distorts. When I exaggerate features, I’m not desecrating tradition—I’m acknowledging it. You can’t parody what you don’t study.
Thimbleton:
You claim lineage, then, with classical painting?
Rumpelton:
Absolutely. Reduction is a classical strategy. Think of caricature. Think of early iconography. Think of what happens when you strip a face down to geometry.
Thimbleton:
You are very comfortable invoking tradition for someone who refuses its materials.
Rumpelton:
Materials change. Anxiety doesn’t. Painters once said oil was inferior to fresco. Now oil is sacred. Give pixels a century.
Thimbleton:
Heaven help us.
Rumpelton:
You sound worried.
Thimbleton:
I am protective. When critics casually compare contemporary experiment to masters, standards erode.
Rumpelton:
Maybe standards evolve.
Thimbleton:
Evolution implies improvement.
Rumpelton:
Or adaptation. I’m adapting to a world where images are screens, not canvases. My work looks native there.
Thimbleton:
And what of permanence? Oil survives centuries.
Rumpelton:
So do screenshots.
Thimbleton:
That is not reassuring.
Rumpelton:
It’s not meant to be. I don’t want comfort. I want someone to look at a Rumpeltized face and feel both recognition and unease.
Thimbleton:
You admit, then, that unease is the goal.
Rumpelton:
Yes. Unease keeps art alive. Reverence embalms it.
Thimbleton:
You see oil as embalmed?
Rumpelton:
I see the attitude around it as embalmed. The medium itself is innocent.
Thimbleton:
A surprisingly diplomatic note.
Rumpelton:
I don’t hate oil paint. I just refuse to kneel before it.
Thimbleton:
And I refuse to bow before MS Paint.
Rumpelton:
Good. If we both refused to bow, maybe we’d finally look at the work instead of the altar.
Thimbleton:
You are infuriatingly articulate for a man who draws with a spray tool.
Rumpelton:
And you are impressively theatrical for a man defending beige.
Thimbleton:
Beige is timeless.
Rumpelton:
So is awkwardness.
Thimbleton:
I suspect this debate will continue.
Rumpelton:
I hope so. Art without argument is décor.
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