MacPaint Art from the Mid-80s Still Looks Great Today

Similarly, some cave paintings still look awesome.

https://www.bradshawfoundation.com/lascaux/

Snark aside, that was my takeaway looking at the article. Why wouldn't they still look good? They were well done when they were made. The Mona Lisa still looks good. The tools don't define the quality, just the constraints. For grayscale pixel art, these are amazing pictures that hold up to the medium, regardless of if computers can do more now.

One thing I read a while back noted that the cave paintings were also painted under and for specific lighting - namely, dim, flickering fire - and that under those conditions the paintings took on an even more expressive character.

What’s wild is that would be true for every single human work up to about the mid-1800s. Art - and architecture - would be made to be seen either in sunlight, with its attendant shadows and shifts throughout the day, or by firelight, which flickers and shifts on its own.