The married couple Višnja and Marijan Anić are among those admirers of photography. Linking their knowledge of contemporary photographic technology with the desire to take a photo of a “picture”, they have found a surprisingly rich resource to fulfil their wishes. They have discovered the amazing features and capacity of the sea (and water) to constantly create new “pictures” over and over again, and that, with great persistence and constant elaboration, they can “steal these pictures” from the sea with their camera. Hence the title of the exhibition “Painting with the Sea”. The authors leave the main authorship to the Creator, seeing themselves as photographic mediators.

Observing the refraction of light, the sharpness or obtuseness of rocks, the pebbles, algae or odd refuse at the bottom of the sea, the authors started to obsessively record various frames, each of which was naturally different, not only in its basic colour and in the interrelation of the colours, but also in the structure of the shapes which can be found on the seabed. Such a photograph presents a contemporary abstract composition and, as such, is proof that all the transformations and the metamorphoses of reality are already somewhere woven into nature and that there are no structures but the Creator’s.

The history of art recognises this deep relationship, as does the history of science and design.

When, after years of engaging in photography, Gjuro Griesbach discovered abstract forms as an “illusion”, he focused on them from the 1960s to the end of his life, believing and advocating that even black and white photography was but a palette of shades which, among other things, serves to convey messages.

The message conveyed in this exhibition by Višnja and Marijan Anić, admirers of photography and the sea, is the discovered beauty of colour and light, the discovered beauty of the changes in the sea, a picturesque abstraction which, by means of digital enlargement, becomes a “painter’s design”, a joyful wonder of shapes.

(from the exhibition catalogue)

The old aesthetic question about whether nature is beautiful, beautiful by itself, receives the standard answer that it cannot be so without a human share in it, without some help, without interpretation, without man’s understanding and certain borders or “taming”. Indeed, for the sea in its entirety, a large tract of a hill, for the phenomenon of snow, for the swirl of plants, it would be even restricting to say they are beautiful, because the diversity of the world lies beyond liking or affective reception. The existence of elemental phenomena and forces seems only to be asking to be aesthetically tamed, in a way reduced, brought down to the dimension of disinterested liking.

Large and wide, deep and open, the sea is far removed from any aesthetic judgement: any possible measure and criteria are lost in the distances of the ocean and the stretches of the high seas, while in the coastal area, in the bays and coves, in the shoals and shallows, one can establish relationships which might be qualified as harmonious and charming, or dynamic and dramatic.

A painter or a poet, a musician or a photographer, in other words a sensitive soul, will find motifs in the surrounding nature which will encourage him to make choices by affinity, inspire him to some more or less creative response.

If nothing else, the very look itself will frame a characteristic or significant situation, so to say “zoom in” on what, from a profusion of stimuli, most corresponds by affinity or by contrast. The outcome of each stimulating encounter between man and nature finds a correlation for the infinite and the unreachable (that is to say, for cosmic distances) within the limitations of our terrestrial destiny and short-term existence.

Višnja and Marijan Anić have tried to nail down their fascination and admiration of the visual richness offered by the sea with the means they had at their disposal, in their case suitable photographic equipment and their role as concentrated and careful observers. Setting frames for an endless register of inspirations, they have composed their personal patterns and cut-outs, imposing – even if unwillingly – dominant rhythms and correlations of segments. Not only did they recognise the rich kaleidoscope of optical sensations on the shores of the Brijuni islands, but they also wanted to share with us their sensations in a restrained and unobtrusive way.

I do not think it inappropriate to say that modern and contemporary visual art is learning to observe the world around it, that without the experience of so-called abstract painting we would not be able to view real-life forms and structures in the same way. It would be no exaggeration to say that, in fact, non-figuration represents the realism of the macro- and micro-universe, but the truthfulness and objectivity of the photograph which captures details of natural phenomena or segments of cosmic movements indeed have the value of abstracting externality, the gravity of generalisation and distancing from a single case, the meaning of the orderly structuring of the composition and the surface.

“Painting with the Sea” by Višnja and Marijan Anić is an unpretentious process of giving shape to a fascination, linking two otherwise opposing realities: elemental nature and sophisticated technology, all for the purpose of causing an emotional and aesthetic response.

The sea has served as a kind of perpetuum mobile of fascinating pictures, as a generous and gentle transmitter of “positive vibrations”, as an ethereal insight into an abyss and as a mirror of the sun’s beneficial rays. The camera of our authors does not merely capture the epidermis, the skin of the sea surface, but pierces through various layers of diaphanous and flexible matter, creating the suggestion of not only three-dimensionality but also of widening, spreading and stretching in all directions.

The sea parcelled out into segments through the frame of the camera does not betray its nature as the elusive Proteus. Even in the orthogonal coordinate system of the framed picture, and even within the convention of the petrified lace of light, it feeds on a presentiment and defends itself with the threat of primordial restlessness.

If the photo-safari does not result in captured living creatures but only in the knit-work of glowing lines, the established network of elastic loops of the shimmering silvery (or golden) sea cobweb will serve to capture the enthusiastic sighs of the viewers.

(from the exhibition catalogue)

Having indubitable artistic imagination, Višnja and Marijan Anić, working on this cycle of photographs, have combined chance and controlled photographic action to reconcile two polarities – nature and technology (the sea and the camera) in order to record and share with others their own fascination with a certain natural phenomenon.

The forms that appear before them are reflections of something invisible to our naked eye. Given specific exposure, the perceived segments of sea beauty turn into a visual sensation quite unlike classical photography. These are fascinating, colourfully rich, morphologically unusual “abstract pictures”. In the interpretation of the Anićes, the motif is replaced by an association or an evocation in a free perception formulated by a classical photographic procedure without subsequent intervention, i.e. finishing touches. As we see them today, the photographs are the result of observation, study and recording, they are the reflection of an exploratory impulse and the life philosophy of the gifted individuals who have recognised, selected and materialised beauty, with a great number of clicks and subsequent selections, intuitively reaching for the pieces which satisfy the criteria of the artistic artefact in terms of composition, morphology and colour.

They reveal to us the sea as a place which gives us a view of both sides, the subjective and the objective. The authors put before our eyes scenes in which reality is only discerned in the configurations and range of unusual colours. What fascinates us is the sea bottom without flora and fauna, where a stray pine needle, sea foam or a blade of grass only testifies to the reality, thus additionally enriching the picture and making it more dynamic.

Familiar seascapes are transformed into an aestheticised matter of ephemeral form. Imbued with a natural sense of colouristic correlation, their “pictures” conquer new dimensions and meanings, subtly interweaving various reminiscences with a substantive motif.

The Anićes are not influenced by conventional iconography, but by a formless orthography that comes close to structureless art created by tools beyond the painter’s craft – the light and the sea. One is therefore not surprised by the title of the exhibition (and the whole project) “Painting with the Sea” because, aided by flashes of light and the circulation of the air which moves and vitalises the surface, it really creates unimaginable spectacles that are permanently captured (thanks to the intervention of the technology) and presented to collective perception.

There is no intention to have direct topographic connotations, but to follow the exploratory impulse in the search for a real picture painted by nature itself. Thus, the Anićes are only mediators, connoisseurs of art created by the sea. Their photographs are proof that abstract art reaches deeply into nature in search of its own archetypes and regularity.

Višnja and Marijan Anić have established new interpretative relations, opening opportunities for a new dialogue between visual arts and contemporary visual media such as “photography”.

August, 2009. (from the exhibition catalogue)

Water has been present in arts for centuries. It has the power of shaping the world and therefore of shaping works of art as well. Sensing its potentials Višnja and Marijan Anić discovered an unusual phenomenon while taking photos of the coastal area. Shooting segments of the sea bed exposed to various influences of light and weather conditions, i.e. the strength of waves, the colour of the sky, the configuration of the sea-bottom, they got the results which were more like abstract paintings than photographs. Naturally, they used sophisticated photographic technology with a specific exposition. The sea bed, filtered through the water as such, exposed to the interventions of natural light and streaming of the air, in their interpretation involuntarily became, not only the main motif and the content, but also the material and the painter himself.

The familiar ‘sea-scapes’ are transformed into aestheticised matter of ephemeral form. Saturated with a natural feeling for coloristic correlation their ‘pictures’ conquer new dimensions and meanings subtly interweaving various reminiscences with a concrete motif. What fascinates is the sea bottom without the flora and fauna, where a stray pine-tree needle, sea foam or a grass only witness the reality thus additionally enriching and dynamizing the picture.

The Aniches are not influenced by the conventional iconography but with an
informal orthography come close to art-informel expression created by the ‘non- painting’ material – the light and the sea. One is therefore not surprised by the title of the exhibition (and the whole project) „Painting with the Sea“ because, aided with flashes of light and circulation of the air which moves and vitalises the surface, it really creates unsurmised spectacles permanently captured (thanx to the intervention of the technology) and presented to the collective perception.

Thus, the Aniches are only mediators, the identifiers of art whose author is the sea. Their photographs are the proof that abstract art reaches deeply into the nature in search of its own archetypes and regularity.

Višnja and Marijan Anić have established new interpretative relations opening possibilities for a new dialogue between visual arts and the contemporary visual medium such as “photography”.

April, 2011

It took almost a hundred years and the art movement The new externality, with the corresponding technological development of cameras and procedures, for the photographers and viewers to become aware of the autonomy of the media and media specificalities of photographic expression. The picturality of art and that of photography differ.

As in other visual arts, the relationship towards reality and externality becomes a central place of the photographic motivation. The artistic personality of the photographer is identified with his specific motivational topics. The power of the photographic artistic expression is the result of finding a characteristic typical motif and the intensity of experience, with the corresponding formal organization of that piece of reality congruent with photography.

The sea is one of the motifs which are almost attributes of photographic interest. It appears early in history of photography, either as a descriptive part of the landscape or as an autonomous topic: marina as a seascape. In this long history, very rich in terms of inventory, and one would say used up contentwise, it is still possible to find an original reading/seeing of its artistic interpretation.

For almost a decade Višnja and Marijan Anić „paint with the sea“; in this syntagm lies their poetry and poetics. They photograph the seabed, and the restlessness of the sea surface transforms its factography, its tactility into free harmonies of the timbric colouring and biomorphological derivations.

These are photographs of the new topology in the extended meaning of the word, photographs which are not declarations about this world through art, but declarations about art through the world. Noticing the artistically attractive sea-bottom, filtered by rippling of the surface and its reflection in the depth, changing the focus between the surface and the bottom in the weather and time-of-day conditioned changes brings about unusual genuine photographs– thalassographies.

They thematise the familiar reality in a new way, shifting it into abstraction: lyrical, structural, as it is called in painting, in a virtual world of heraklitean fluid forms, outlines, pigments, decorations and multiple spatial echo. The burnish of the photographic paper points out the luminous sensitivity of the picture plane. All three components of a work of art are present here: in terms of content, plastic and emotion.  The generic title of the cycle with a visual association innate to human beings, enables the attribution of these pictures, and thus the widening and deepening of our experience of the world and a new quality of its existence.

Through the dance of the Nereids, the mythical Mediterranean sea nymphs, the sea bottom is converted into a kaleidoscope of organic and factorial facets – into which we are led by the married couple Anic, thus enriching, as art always does, our existence.

The characteristic of the sea to ruffle and whirl is now recorded in a cadre which reaches to its rocky or other bottom. The moment when the photograph is created includes everything: inspiration, the colour of the sky, its shadow, the wind and the waves, the colours, the sea-bed, the foam of waves sometimes, the sun, the moon and the stars, and last but not least, the eternal sea from which both life and art are born.

Freed from time and illusive depth of space, transferred in the frozen expression of the photograph, the sea creates an illusion that it is actually here, both as something that actually isn’t and all that it is. So we see a metamorphosis based on the phenomenon of a certain paralysis of the reality which undoubtedly brings about considerable elation of the heart. This emotion is closely connected with the insight in the uniqueness of the moment when reality opens up like a gate and in spite of the uncertainty which exists at the threshold of another world and that one that we actually see, this experience reminds us of what actually is the play of the sea-goddesses before our eyes. They have long been attributed the power of being able to change forms, as the very Greek word nereus implies, it is ascribed to someone who is brisk and flowing. The same features has the surface of the sea which is traditionally considered but the face of the god Nereus (the father of the Nereids), so when he frowns, the sea frowns too. But, symbolically, the sea is a live medium linking the different and the distant, made of stone, and water, embraced by the light of the sun. What happens here is a fraction of that eternal magic responsible for the mobility of the world as such, as in all games in which the endless and eternal are touched, the sea being in that category.

The photograph here, to stay in the classical manner, shows a certain yearning to return to the homeland where art was founded on invoking the muses, necessary for the whole experiment to succeed. Still, there is something else here that we could call the illustrated day-dreaming of the elements the sea consists of, so therefore, what you can see is not only the blue seascape or a sea-gull’s flight, but a fraction which sinks into that area in which, as it seems, discoveries have always been there waiting for us.