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35 Phenomenal Fractal Art Pictures

By Smashing Editorial, October 17th, 2008 in Inspiration | 76 Comments | Forum

By Robert Bowen and Smashing Editorial Team

In the realm of digital art, so many wonderful and playful genres exist that stimulate the imagination, but so few do it with the intricate style of fractal art. Fractal art is achieved through the mathematical calculations of fractal objects being visually displayed, with the use of self-similar transforms that are generated and manipulated with different assigned geometric properties to produce multiple variations of the shape in continually reducing patterns. Sounds extremely technical and not that artistic, true, but these equations create some of the most mesmerizing and inspiring artwork to emerge from the digital art arena.

In this edition of our Monday Inspiration series, we look at awe-inspiring examples of the dynamic digital art sensation that is fractal art with 50 Phenomenal Fractal Art Renders. Setting across the vast sea of cyberspace to find these works was such an amazing task as so many fantastic pieces surfaced. Here are scaled-down versions of some of the most breathtaking ones that were uncovered, though the full-sized versions (linked through the image) offer a much more spectacular view of these mathematical masterpieces.

35 Beautiful Fractal Art Pictures

A Colorful Circle
The play of colors is remarkable.

Dot Dot Dot
Created by Lynn ON VACATION (Gracie’s mom).

Fire Snail
Created by Sven Fauth.

Ring of fire
Created by Carl Jones.

Experiment 109 - Fractals
Created by Lynn ON VACATION.

Flaming Eye-Spiral
Created by Sven Fauth.

I sleep only to dream of you
Created by longan drink.

Water Lilies
These fractal flames were created by Roger Johnston and are an “extension of the iterated function system class of fractals”.

Dec 31 Apophysis 1
Julian Bilateral.

Quantum Fabric
A pure fractal flame by Cory Ench.

Nabdrux
An abstract piece of art by mailart-org.

Fractal Web
Created by Sven Fauth.

Stefano Menicagli’s
Alien Sphere

Grape Jelly Nebula

Squidswirl2b1
A swirly beauty.

Silwenka’s
Gloris

Peter Sdobnov’s
Treasure in 3D

Keith Mackay’s
Butterflies

Peter Sdobnov’s
Cataclysm

Bobrobon’s
The Human Abstract

Eye of the storm
The infinity strikes again.

xNight’s
Chaotic Love

Cygx1’s
The Awakening III - Rebirth

Micheal Faber’s
Counter Spin III

LaPurr’s
Subtle Masking

Subcarrier’s
Tales from the Trip

Chris Martin’s
Gift Box Marble - Festive Spirit

Katryna Wade’s
Phoenix Heart Be Reborn

Chris Martin’s
Strawberry Fields Forever

Dirk Monteny’s
Cubik Olympic

Grinagog’s
Curling Conks

Subcarrier’s
Decay

Silverb’s
The Icon of Hecate

Morgan Chase’s
Cosmic Carnival

Zooreka
UF 109 Project Purple Parasite

AsaLegault’s
Polka Dot Explosion

Last Click

The last click goes out to a spectacular example of artistic will and ingenuity as demonstrated by Ramiro Perez in a stunning work produced with the fractal program that he himself created. His desire to create such phenomenal work is alone inspiration enough, but throw in his incredible artwork, and he’s practically unstoppable.

Resources

Incendia
The fractal program developed by Ramiro Perez, available free for download
Apophysis
A freeware fractal flame editor for Windows
Freaky Fractals
A collection of fractals in high resolution.
Fractal World Gallery
188 beautiful fractal art pictures, created by Cory Ench.
Fractal Art: Complex and Beautiful Color Inspiration
A showcase of 20 Beautiful Fractal Artworks
Flame Fractals That Take Your Breath Away
Witness the beauty and elegance of mathematics with 50 breathtaking fractals.
Fractal Food
“This is so visually stunning an object that on first encounter it’s hard to imagine you’re looking at a garden vegetable rather than an alien artefact created with molecular nanotechnology.”
Apophysis Resources
Flickr Fractal Group
Fractal Tutorials
Fractal Art
Created and collected by Lynn ON VACATION (Gracie’s mom).

About the author

Robert Bowen is an emerging author, celebrated podcaster and poet and most recently the co-founder and imaginative co-contributor of the creative design and blogging duo at the Arbenting Design Blog, a graphic design, Web design/development and copywriting venture. (al)

Published in Inspiration, October 17th, 2008
Tags: abstract, fractals, inspiration

1.

Ethan Ellis (October 17th, 2008, 5:16 am)

:/ bth I dislike fractals but nice collection
2.

vashyoung (October 17th, 2008, 5:27 am)

cool! amazing and incredible!
3.

Nathan (October 17th, 2008, 5:31 am)

Woah dude.
4.

NL Schober (October 17th, 2008, 5:41 am)

It’s beyond me how anyone could not like fractals.

I think Manas Dichow needs a special mention here;
Link [www.flickr.com]
IMHO his fractals on Flickr are leagues above the others.

Alice Kelley is pretty cool too. Link [www.fractalus.com]
5.

NaldzGraphics (October 17th, 2008, 5:46 am)

looks good. thanks for this

Ronald
6.

Htoo Tay Zar (October 17th, 2008, 5:46 am)

Some fractal make me dizzy. anyway, nice collection, some’re really awesome..
7.

ZeroDown (October 17th, 2008, 6:22 am)

very very good examples
here are some more in wallpaper screen resolutions
Link [www.wallpaperstop.com]
Link [www.wallpaperstop.com]
8.

Carol Cooper (October 17th, 2008, 8:08 am)

Breathtakingly amazing renders!
Congrats to all the artists @ to Robert for bringing them to our attention! WOW & thanks
9.

Etlund (October 17th, 2008, 8:17 am)

Wow, fractals sure look different than when I was a kid! (Remember Fractint on a 486?)

Great pics. Thanks for sharing.
10.

Raman Sharma (October 17th, 2008, 8:42 am)

ultimate collection!!
11.

romanovichk (October 17th, 2008, 9:00 am)

some of these look like the visualizations from winamp, cool nonetheless
12.

Braxton (October 17th, 2008, 9:26 am)

Could you post a fractal tutorial sometime
13.

justin (October 17th, 2008, 9:29 am)

electricsheep.org

some of these pics are from the generated fractals from this screensaver.

just download the packs install, and stare at your screen for an hour!
14.

Jon (October 17th, 2008, 12:27 pm)

Great stuff. Very artistic.
15.

segfault (October 17th, 2008, 12:30 pm)

woah indeed. i like ring of fire the best!
16.

Mark (October 17th, 2008, 1:31 pm)

Cool impressive list!

I love to create some Link [www.flickr.com] too.
17.

dev(Www.iHaCK.ASIA) (October 17th, 2008, 7:03 pm)

Most of them really beautiful, Gonna download some of them and use as wallpaper
Link [Www.iHaCK.ASIA]
18.

Spindrift (October 18th, 2008, 2:12 am)

wow.
I’ve allways been intrigued by fractals, but many of those are something else.
When people start to make 3d renderings of fractal structures, and apply depth of field to fractal depths, we get some very interesting results.

great stuff!
19.

Tschai (October 18th, 2008, 2:20 am)

Simply dizzy making and amazing.

Use to be busy making them myself with simple code back in the days….
20.

Valery Mishkorez (October 18th, 2008, 5:52 am)

so glamourous!
21.

dollslikeus (October 18th, 2008, 5:52 am)

I love what you do reminds me of finger painting when I was a child.
22.

decent graphics (October 18th, 2008, 9:21 am)

really Excellent Collection of design
23.

Ignatz Horowitz (October 18th, 2008, 10:12 am)

Nothing spectacular about any of these. Quite boring, actually.
24.

Lucas Loyola (October 18th, 2008, 11:05 am)

aa there some fractals amazing on this collection, but other are poor :D
25.

jbcarey (October 18th, 2008, 1:14 pm)

Nah…. Fractals…. not my thing!
26.

hanliu (October 18th, 2008, 10:05 pm)

Very cool!
27.

carlos (October 19th, 2008, 4:04 am)

hmmm… I haven´t been taking notice of fractals recently - fractal art has come a long way since the mandelbrot spirals I used to create on my old PowerMac.
28.

ferdranda (October 19th, 2008, 6:49 pm)

nice i really love fractals!! love it!
29.

Andris (October 19th, 2008, 10:31 pm)

Quantum Fabric is awesome. Though I don’t really like fractals.
30.

Joefrey Mahusay (October 19th, 2008, 10:57 pm)

Cool fractals, love them all!
31.

jean-marc (October 20th, 2008, 12:06 am)

J’adore!
32.

Nick (October 20th, 2008, 1:00 am)

Sadly, another poorly researched article on fractal art. Amateurish showcase at best for the most part.
33.

Tom (October 20th, 2008, 3:20 am)

You can play around with the Mandelbrot fractal online with this Flash Link [www.subblue.com]. You can also download the source code too if you want to see how it works.
34.

Rakesh.S (October 20th, 2008, 4:44 am)

I don’t like fractal arts.. thumbs down for this post :-(
35.

MSOnWired (October 20th, 2008, 5:41 am)

I love the “Waterlillies”. Nice use of color.
36.

Tina (October 20th, 2008, 8:28 am)

I love fractal so much!
37.

Cesar (October 21st, 2008, 11:49 am)

Muito bom é pouco trabalho fantastico……………..
38.

Robert Bowen (October 21st, 2008, 1:14 pm)

Thanks for the comments and the feedback. Some of these are new to me, and I think show a nice balance of basic to more in-depth renders. It creates a sort of spectrum, if you will, and if you won’t…I’ve got nothing.

Glad you like it, those who do. Sorry, those who don’t. Big shout out to the artists for creating such colorful and inspiring works!
39.

Direct2Brain (October 23rd, 2008, 8:43 am)

Thank you Robert for feature my “Alien Sphere” fractal in this great image gallery.
Regards.
Stefano.
40.

graphiconcepts (October 23rd, 2008, 12:11 pm)

Friggin dope, really like the cubic olympic.
41.

ali (October 24th, 2008, 4:26 am)

Thank You
very good
42.

Pamela (October 26th, 2008, 6:55 pm)

Well, everyone has their own tastes, but I agree with the comment or rather question “How can someone not like fractals”? They may be manufactured, but the sheer beauty and variety of them can challenge ones’ imagination endlessly. These are stunning.
43.

TERRY FRASER (November 4th, 2008, 5:04 pm)

Will be the art for the future.
44.

Dianne (November 8th, 2008, 1:40 pm)

most beautiful…..stuning..(smile)
45.

Kukla1973 (December 9th, 2008, 6:40 pm)

Сколько ж можно говорить
46.

cory (January 23rd, 2009, 10:05 am)

art is amazing is my best sub.
47.

cory (January 23rd, 2009, 10:06 am)

art is awsome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
48.

Santa Claus (April 6th, 2009, 1:09 pm)

I LUVS IT YOU GUYS AREN’T ON THE NAUGHTY LIST
49.

Santa Claus (April 6th, 2009, 1:09 pm)

HOHOHO