I think they mean that libraries like 'ggplot2' and 'dplyr' and 'TurtleGraphics' use a LOT more than 280 lines of code.

When people see 'small code generates pretty graphics', they usually don't equate that to, 'a library was used as intended.'

They think of projects that use math in interesting ways to wring unexpected results out of very limited conditions. Stuff like this: http://www.ozone3d.net/tutorials/intro_demoscene.php

It's cool and fun to graph mathematical patterns, but it does seem a little disingenuous to call it "Tiny Art".

it's tiny because it can be expressed in a tiny respresentation

Ive just come up with a symbol that represents the entire collection of the Louvre.

That is a symbol with 0 re-use and therefore 0 abstraction. That is much less interesting than a represtentation that can generalize across a wide range of uses

No no, it is actually extremely flexible and reusable:

draw("louvre")

It has support for lots of collections.

It's silly to brag about your minimal code if you use external libraries that contain millions of characters.

But I don't think that was the point of that article. It says:

>> Now that Twitter allows 280 characters, the code of some drawings I have made can fit in a tweet. In this post I have compiled a few of them.

It's about a list of code snippets that you can send around on Twitter, that can generate interesting "art". It doesn't claim to be the shortest code that can be used to generate art. It just says it can fit inside a tweet.