Generative Art: Origins, Evolution, Generative Artists and Key Works

Generative art is a movement that emerged on the heels of modern art genres like Cubism, Dadaism, and Surrealism, celebrating the chaos and serendipity of its modern predecessors. In an unprecedented move, artists utilized systems that could generate works of art with little interference from the artist.
Unsurprisingly, generative art has been met with criticism over the years for its perceived artificiality. Critics argue that because the artist relinquishes physical control of their work by letting a machine complete it, the finished product is far from art. Like those who once dismissed the works of Edvard Munch for producing seemingly unfinished works, however, acceptance of a generative approach to art has grown in recent years. Today, museums and personal collections around the world display generative sketches, paintings, animations, and poems.What is Generative Art?
What is Generative Art?

Vera Molnar, Structure de Quadrilatères, circa 1988. Sold for €2,470 via Artcurial (October 2016).
Generative art refers to any work created by a system with some level of autonomy, or work that can function with little intervention from the artist. This type of art has no discernible motivation or ideology that connects the artists who practice it, and unlike most artistic movements, it’s more about exploring systems than content production. A generative artist designs the system using language rules, machines, algorithms, or genetic sequences, generating a final product that serves as a work of art. These digital, chemical, or manual systems encompass a variety of disciplines, including architecture, poetry, literature, animation, and visual art.
Generative art has used the most advanced technology available to create something previously unattainable by the human hand throughout history. While generative art wasn’t common practice until the late 20th century, examples of works created using generative ideas date back to the Middle Paleolithic era. In 1999, archaeologists uncovered a stone carving that featured a grid system carved into stone dating back 70,000 years. This finding serves as one of the earliest examples of the most distinct elements of generative art, and demonstrates that prehistoric generative works of art still relied on the most sophisticated, readily available technology and systems, just as generative art made today relies on artificial intelligence (AI). As generative artist Vera Molnar explains,
“Without the aid of a computer, it would not be possible to materialize quite so faithfully an image that previously existed only in the artist’s mind. This may sound paradoxical, but the machine, which is thought to be cold and inhuman, can help to realize what is most subjective, unattainable, and profound in a human being.”
History of Generative Art

Paul Cézanne, La Carrière de Bibémus, circa 1895. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
While generative art didn’t catch on until the late-20th century, early influences started emerging at the end of the 19th century. Artists like Paul Cézanne, whose work laid the foundation for Cubist principles, introduced ways to play with geometry and conflicting vantage points in his art. From there, both Futurism and Constructivism introduced a fascination with technology and machines. Combined, these concepts became central components of generative art.
The 20th century also ushered in Dadaism, an artistic movement that used randomness to reject established policies and practices. Though this brief movement only lasted from 1916 to 1922, Surrealism followed in the 1920s, and Abstract Expressionism followed in the 1950s. Each of these movements demonstrated captivation with autonomy and challenged the very definition of what art could be. When artist Marcel Duchamp submitted a urinal signed “R. Mutt” to the Society of Independent Artists in New York in 1917, it ignited a discussion about what can truly be considered art. Today, a similar debate exists among supporters and critics of generative art.

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, circa 1895. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
When the modern commercial computer emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, generative artists began experimenting with room-sized computation machines in a mix of art and computer science. Women entered the field of generative art during this time, including artists such as Lillian Schwartz, who made many key contributions that shaped the trajectory of the movement. As such, Schwartz was the first generative artist to have her work acquired by MoMA and the first to showcase animated digital work as fine art.
As computers became more compact and accessible, artists began using algorithms to create works that both thrilled and angered critics. Computer programs that enabled artists to code for visual arts, such as Design by Numbers and Processing, were developed in the late 1990s. These innovations made creating generative art accessible to anyone with a computer, which resulted in a surge in interest in generative art.
In 2014, generative art experienced its next great milestone as breakthroughs in artificial intelligence caused AI-produced art to blossom from generative art. Additionally, generative adversarial networks, or GANs, designed to think like a human brain have proved successful in creating artwork that contends with analog art.

William S. Burroughs, The Naked Lunch, circa 1959. Sold for $1,600 via Swann Auction Galleries (May 2006).
Types of Generative Art
The manipulation of systems to produce something random and unique is central to generative art. This broad definition lends itself to many different types of art and artists. Though generative music, architecture, poetry, and visual art involve different processes, they all embody the chaotic transformation from the initial idea to the final result.
Generative Literature
Authors produce generative literature by creating a defined database of words or letters and randomly generating them to form a complete work. In the 1950s and 1960s, author William S. Burroughs used this technique to craft his narratives. Decades later in 2005, author Philip M. Parker patented a method for automating entire books. Parker has published over 200,000 books by using a set of algorithms that scraps the internet for information about a niche topic and compiles the data into a book.
Generative Music
The term generative music was coined in 1995 by trailblazing artist and musician Brian Eno. To make generative music, artists use their style and skill to set parameters within the system to achieve completely different, unique pieces each time. Though this type of music wasn’t officially created until the mid-1990s, influencers such as Johann Philipp Kirnberger and his “Musikalisches Würfelspiel” (Musical Dice Game) are credited with inspiring this art form.
Generative Architecture
Generative art is commonplace in the realm of architecture and interior design, and the adoption of computer-aided design (CAD) software has made creating generative modulations even easier. In 1987, Italian architect Celestino Soddu created a program that could generate unlimited iterations of Medieval Italian towns based on paintings from that era. Soddu was inspired by weather patterns, natural disasters, and other unique events that occur in nature and used generative art to replicate those influences in his designs.

Vera Molnar, Gris sur argent, circa 1979. Sold for €200 via Cornette de Saint-Cyr-Bruxelles (November 2016).
Generative Visual Art
The most common type of generative art, generative visual artists use a variety of autonomous systems to create works that range from organic to artificial and from chaotic to controlled. As computer accessibility has grown, computer-based generative art has seen increased mainstream appeal.
Generative Poetry
Generative poetry is a subset of digital poetry that also includes visual poetry, where the visual element is key to understanding the poem, and interactive poetry, where the reader physically interfaces with the poem in some way. In this type of literature—the origins of which stem from Dadaism—the artist codes the poem to select words from a database based on the response from the reader. After the reader interacts with the poem, a new poem is generated to reveal the true piece of art.
Prolific Generative Artists
Generative Artist: Georg Nees
Georg Nees is considered to be one of the pioneers of generative art. His 1965 piece called Schotter (Gravel) depicts a grid of 12 squares by 22 squares. At the top of the grid, the squares appear to be perfectly uniform, and as the squares progress from top to bottom, they become increasingly disordered. Nees increased this variation until the squares were in complete disarray at the bottom of the composition.
Generative Artist: Vera Molnar

Vera Molnar, Histoire d’I, Suite, circa 2002. Sold for €3200 via Cornette de Saint-Cyr (November 2016).
With a body of work that spans three decades, prolific Hungarian artist Vera Molnar was a trailblazer for women artists looking to explore generative art. Her pieces such as Dés Ordres defied critics’ claims that work made by a computer could only be artificial. Works by the artist have sold particularly well among European auction houses like Tajan, Piasa, Artcurial, and Cornette de Saint-Cyr, where recent auction results have yielded anywhere from €1500 to €11000.
Generative Artist: Jared Tarbell

Jared Tarbell, Substrate, circa 2004. Image courtesy of flickr.
Jared Tarbell—also known for his role as the co-founder of Etsy, an online marketplace for handmade goods—carried the generative art torch into the 21st century with his pieces such as Substrate. The intricacy and detail of this work has baffled audiences, and the piece exemplifies the guiding principle of generative art: to use technology to create a work that could have otherwise only existed in the imagination.
Generative Artist: Mark J. Stock
Artist and scientist Mark J. Stock blends his two passions seamlessly, focusing on physics-based simulations that spotlight the dynamic movement of fluid. His generative art presents visual demonstrations of natural events and processes, including flowing liquids, particle systems, and physical forces. With an eye toward capturing the complex beauty of fluidity, motion and turbulence, Stock creates generative art that’s simultaneously realistic and abstract.
The Role of AI in Generative Art
A game-changer in terms of generative art, AI helps artists destroy the boundaries between innovation and creativity with its transformative impact. Generative artists leverage machine learning algorithms, neural networks, and vast sets of data to generate original artworks with AI, helping them infuse their works with complexity using tailored prompts that hone in on exact details they may not have the skill to bring forth on their own. This unique collaboration between man and machine enriches artistic expression and offers opportunities to explore the relationship between the two as technological innovation continues.
Impact and Future of Generative Art
Generative art sits at the crossroads between technology and art, and its potential to revolutionize may introduce unforeseen issues going forward. Though generative art is guided by human input that ensures unique output, this art form presents challenges when it comes to traditional definitions of ownership and authorship. On the brighter side of things, however, generative art offers unique opportunities for diverse people to collaborate, pushing against the constraints of classic art in the process.
Generative Art: A Quick Recap
Generative art is the culmination of artistic expression in the 20th century, deriving inspiration from early 20th-century movements such as Cubism, Dadaism, and Surrealism. With the continuous development of new media and technology, combined with advancements in AI, the creative potential for generative art has expanded in unimaginable ways and continues to evolve today.
Sources: Carnegie Mellon | Philip Galanter | The British Computer Society | Intermorphic | Generative Design Futuring Past | Inconvergent | Art Nome
Alexis holds a PhD in art history and has enjoyed professional roles across gallery, museum, and academic settings. Thanks to these myriad experiences, Alexis holds a wealth of knowledge across the fields of fine and decorative arts and enjoys every opportunity to share these insights along with the stories of these makers and objects with Invaluable collectors.