>>10515839LEGO abandoned their long-held balance between the representation of an idea (be it a plane, spaceship, house, etc) and its effectiveness as a building block toy (its interchangeability and usefulness of each piece). Despite the decades of "progress" (by progress I mean the evolution and addition of new pieces to the palate with which a LEGO set could represent an idea), LEGO sets could still effectively and soulfully execute the user's intention to manifest their idea into a model they could play with. This was achieved by relying on the simplicity of LEGO pieces; LEGO was simple and abstract by design, so as to leverage the user's imagination, rather than attempt to be a perfect model of an idea. I would argue that LEGO once had an art style, insofar that in trying to represent something specific (like an animal), it would be simplified to the point that it could fit in with the abstract, rectilinear world of LEGO. At some point in the past decade or two, this art style, and the balance that it built upon, was discarded in favour for literalism and hyper-intricacy, a direction that is inherently anti-imagination and anti-play.
tl;dr refinement culture