Generative Impressionism

Impressionism aims to induce a dance of color and movement using harsh brushes of oil on canvas. My program "Generative Impressionism" takes a step beyond by bringing the brushstrokes to life. Each stroke exists on it's own taking the color and path appropriate to it. Alone it flows in the current... but look beyond.

If you take a step back you can perceive a striking image... a living image. Because it is living you must observe it as long as it survives. Like a blooming flower after a while it wilts away so appreciate the fleeting beauty of it.

This processing sketch is the result of some ideas that I've been keeping in my head for a few years. Two full days of train rides through the country gave me the opportunity to prototype them on my laptop. Then I refined them at home resulting in what you see before you. At first I only ran it on paintings but it became clear that it can do so much more so I tried it on a couple of photos.

In the video you see the best results so far:

Starry Night - Vincent van Gogh

Nymph in the grass - Nicolae Grigorescu

Roses - Stefan Luchian

A photo of japanese spring roses from my garden

A photo of me

San Giorgio Maggiore al Crepuscolo - Claude Monet

The music is the Romanian Rhapsody by George Enescu in a special computer generated mix of sampled audio and MIDI tracks. The Romanian Rhapsody and the sampled tracks are public domain.

Maybe I will organize a full exhibition with all the images the program interpreted.

I will post the code on OpenProcessing as soon as I can make it readable.