Leonardo da Vinci once wrote in his art notebooks to protégés:

“Your shadows and lights should be blended without lines or borders - in the manner of smoke losing itself in the air.”

Art scholars praise the Mona Lisa for da Vinci’s pioneering of this technique - called sfumato, from the Italian fumo meaning smoke…

It was an achievement that gave the image a profound feeling of plasticity and three-dimensional volume. Which was hard to replicate.

But then, 480 years later, pixel art was born.

It was first created out of necessity: Mario had to have a mustache because game developers had no other way to define his nose from his mouth. They didn’t realize it then, but they were pioneering a whole new aesthetic.

When you’re confined to pixels, you can only use what is most important about a portrait. Which is why it does justice to the most famous painting of all time:

We don’t know her identity. Your mind must fill in the details. And we can’t tell if she’s smiling or not…

But when you pull back, even though there are no lines or borders, the piece comes together in the way only pixels can. And oddly enough, feels even more retro than da Vinci’s original masterpiece.

We think the master would be impressed.