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Yeah, that's a popular theory. I'm not sure if it's a complete explanation, though. Pixel art (and other art as well) is often stylized, which means it's tryin

Yeah, that's a popular theory. I'm not sure if it's a complete explanation, though. Pixel art (and other art as well) is often stylized, which means it's trying to present a more appealing version of reality. The viewing angles are carefully chosen, the colors and lights are more vibrant, the shapes of everyday objects are more varied and graceful, the people are better looking, etc. The end result is that you're looking at a rough description of something that you want but don't have. You could achieve the same effect with a high resolution image, but then you need to make all the little details beautiful as well, which takes much more work. There are certainly high resolution paintings that manage to be as haunting and evocative as the best pixel art, for example Shan Qiao's "Story of the city" (https://www.artstation.com/artwork/story-of-the-city https://www.artstation.com/artwork/story-of-the-city), Nivanh Chantara's "Babiru 02" (https://www.artstation.com/artwork/babiru-02 https://www.artstation.com/artwork/babiru-02), or pretty much anything on http://reddit.com/r/backgroundart http://reddit.com/r/backgroundart.

nogridbag 11y ago
>> You could achieve the same effect with a high resolution image The first animated GIF from the article is based off of this higher resolution image: http://kusakabeworks.net/gallery/the-house-with-signs-of-marufuku/ http://kusakabeworks.net/gallery/the-house-with-signs-of-mar... ...so it would be interesting to see which people find more appealing.
- furubusu 11y ago
  Some aesthetics categorically reject choice. Everybody else thinks deliberate choice by the artist is what makes art worthwhile. In these gif images, every pixel is chosen for its contribution to the whole. The source photo illustration isn't nearly so rigorous, and IMHO that's what makes it skillful to a point but totally pedestrian and uninteresting. A bit hard to look at, actually. YMMV of course.
- cousin_it 11y ago
  Both images are very good. IMO the low-res version [1] has slightly better colors, while the high-res version [2] captures the cloudy weather a bit better, but they feel about equally appealing to me. Note that the high-res image is also very stylized for appeal rather than realism, no one would mistake it for a photo. [1] http://designmadeinjapan.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Train-Japan.gif http://designmadeinjapan.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2015/07... [2] http://kusakabeworks.net/uploads/10102901.jpg http://kusakabeworks.net/uploads/10102901.jpg

nogridbag 11y ago

>> You could achieve the same effect with a high resolution image The first animated GIF from the article is based off of this higher resolution image: http://kusakabeworks.net/gallery/the-house-with-signs-of-marufuku/ http://kusakabeworks.net/gallery/the-house-with-signs-of-mar... ...so it would be interesting to see which people find more appealing.

furubusu 11y ago
Some aesthetics categorically reject choice. Everybody else thinks deliberate choice by the artist is what makes art worthwhile. In these gif images, every pixel is chosen for its contribution to the whole. The source photo illustration isn't nearly so rigorous, and IMHO that's what makes it skillful to a point but totally pedestrian and uninteresting. A bit hard to look at, actually. YMMV of course.
cousin_it 11y ago
Both images are very good. IMO the low-res version [1] has slightly better colors, while the high-res version [2] captures the cloudy weather a bit better, but they feel about equally appealing to me. Note that the high-res image is also very stylized for appeal rather than realism, no one would mistake it for a photo. [1] http://designmadeinjapan.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Train-Japan.gif http://designmadeinjapan.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2015/07... [2] http://kusakabeworks.net/uploads/10102901.jpg http://kusakabeworks.net/uploads/10102901.jpg