Seminal work

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A seminal work [from Latin semen meaning seed] is a work from which other works grow. The term usually refers to an intellectual or artistic achievement whose ideas and techniques have been adopted or responded to in later works by other people, either in the same field or in the general culture.

For example, Darwin's 1859 The Origin of Species is a seminal work because an entire field of biology sprang from the concepts it laid out. Furthermore, after 1859, applications of evolutionary theory began to multiply in art, literature, anthropology, theology, and many other fields.

Seminal work should not be confused with magnum opus, which refers to the greatest work of a single individual, and not necessarily to that which has inspired the most work by others. For example, Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon can be described correctly as a seminal work of Cubism. But this would not prevent one from calling another work of Picasso's, such as Guernica, his magnum opus.

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