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An article trying to explain why so-called "pixel art" should be rather named and understood as grid art. It offers a screen technology independent definition of grid art.
I am always puzzled by the fact that we obstinately use same names for things that have substantially changed over time. I am talking about a certain form of game art in which we use small square patches of color in order to create visual assets for our games. This technique is called nowadays "pixel art". A false name, in my opinion.
What we call a pixel art can be best described as a crossover of digital painting and the traditional art of tapestry. You start with a grid and you fill its cells with square patches of color. The whole image consists of the entire grid filled with color. A simple change in color of the single cell can have a dramatic effect on the entire image. A specific role that a colored cell plays in the final image is determined by its relation with other cells. With the adjacent ones, in the first line. It means that the image is never a simple sum of its colored cells. Rather, it is an organic composition where the grid position of the colored cell determines its specific role in the image taken as a whole. For example, a cell with a certain color that is surrounded by lighter cells gives a shadow effect. Surrounded by darker cells, the same cell with the same color results in a highlight, etc.
The capacity of the single cell to influence the whole image - or at least adjacent cells - is made possible by the size of the cell. Obviously, the minimal size of the cell should not go bellow the naked eye visibility. Otherwise, a single cell color change would not have any effect on the image. The minimal "brush" size of our digital painter would have to grow in order that he be able to control the effect of a single color placement gesture. That would, however, transform our grid art into an ordinary form of digital painting - one that we normally do in Gimp or Photoshop. The grid art would lose its proper essence and it would cease to be what it is.
That said, two minimal conditions must be fulfilled in order to call something a grid art:
- The image has to be a) grid-structured and b) a minimal patch of color should be a square that fits exactly the size of the grid cell.
- A single grid cell must be visible to the naked eye.
The fact that the currently minimal size of the grid cell visible to the naked eye is equivalent to the the size of pixel is historically accidental and will change. Probably very soon, we will not be able to see a single pixel anymore. Due to a technological progress it will progressively get smaller and smaller. On the other hand, the fact that the pixel on old screens was bigger than the minimal colored square blotch visible by naked eye is also a historical accident. In general, we should not define something that is supposed to last by volatile features. In our case, we should not define the minimal or the maximal size of the grid cell by something so accidental as the size of pixel. The technology changes and will change. We do not want our art to be defined by something as volatile as screen technology.
Rather, the minimal size of a grid cell should be defined by something more permanent and more proper to human nature: a naked eye visibility. On the other hand, its maximal size should be defined by the practical reasoning and style. The larger the viewing distance is, the larger the minimal cell size is, and vice versa. The blockier the look dictated by style is, the larger the minimal cell size is, and vice versa.
The blocky style graphics could be and often are reminiscent of older computer games. They could evoke a nostalgia in older players. However, younger players will lack more and more the reference to or reminiscence of the pixelated computer graphics. For them, the blocky style will be a valuable artistic expression in its own right. Much like low-res synthesizer generated sounds have an autonomous esthetic appeal and artistic purpose, despite the fact that they sound like 1960s moogs or that they were supposed to emulate real instruments like organs, cellos, etc.
Let us, therefore, stop using wrong names for right things. Let us take "pixel art" for what it really is, a grid art. We want to be able to gleefully enjoy a blocky style, without a melancholic tinge of nostalgia. Let us optimistically look into the future, rather than hold on to the past.
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