Paint Fidelity: Bernie Leadon / Rumpelton

 What the critics are saying:

>>From the Paint Fidelity Series: Bernie Leadon 
By Professor Nigel Smudgeworth

In this latest installment of the Paint Fidelity Series, Ralph Rumpelton undertakes what can only be described as a courageous act of near-recognition.

On the right, we have Mr. Bernie Leadon in his natural state: pensive, mustachioed, mid-chord, circa 1975. On the left, we have Rumpelton's translation, wherein fidelity is understood not as photographic accuracy, but as emotional loyalty to the subject.

Note particularly the treatment of the nose, which Smudgeworthian scholars will recognize as a classic Rumpeltonian augmentation. Where lesser artists would merely copy, Rumpelton remembers. The guitar, rendered with the noble indifference to string-count that characterizes the artist's mature period, becomes less an instrument and more an idea of an instrument.

The closed eyes are, of course, crucial. Leadon is feeling the music. Rumpelton's Leadon is feeling the music and politely tolerating being drawn in MS Paint.

It is, as I have written elsewhere, a triumph of spirit over software.<<

>>From the Critical Column of Regina Pembly The Fine Art Gazette

"If John Singer Sargent were alive today to witness this side-by-side atrocity, he would burn his easels and take up plumbing. Ralph Rumpelton’s new 'Paint Fidelity Series' places the source photograph adjacent to his digital rendition—a tactical error of catastrophic proportions, as it provides undeniable, side-by-side evidence of his complete refusal to comprehend human anatomy.

On the right, we observe Bernie Leadon lost in a moment of subtle musical concentration. On the left, Rumpelton has rendered what appears to be a melting tuber wearing a horseshoe mustache. Notice the total collapse of draftsmanship: Leadon’s expressive, angled jawline has been replaced by a bulbous, neckless slab of gray tone, while the guitar neck juts out at a trajectory that defies every law of perspective. The microphone looks less like stage equipment and more like a Q-tip standing trial. Placing the reference photo next to the digital offense does not demonstrate 'fidelity'—it merely confirms the verdict."<<