Automating Evolutionary Art in the Style of Mondrian

Many recent systems for computer artwork generation with evolutionary algorithms have been interactive, relegating the task of evaluating new genotypes to their users. In contrast, we are interested in fully automating the entire evolutionary cycle applied to art work generation. We set out to produce a program that would generate artwork in the style of the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian, who was active mainly in the first half of the 20 century. He developed his own distinctive and abstract style (called simply de stijl, which is Dutch for “the style”). Paintings in Mondrian’s style typically include vertical and horizontal black lines over a white background, with some or all of the primary colors (blue, red, and yellow), plus black, filling in some of the square or rectangular regions (or parts of the regions) separated out from the background by the black lines. It is this style that our system tries to emulate. Fig. 1 shows a typical Mondrian painting in his distinctive style.