• Line drawings

  photos-3/1.jpg
  

• Line drawings

  photos-3/2.jpg
  

• Line drawings

  photos-3/3.jpg
  

• Line drawings

  photos-3/4.jpg
  

• Line drawings

  photos-3/5.jpg
  

• Line drawings

  photos-3/6.jpg
  

• Line drawings

  photos-3/7.jpg
  

• Line drawings

  photos-3/8.jpg
  

• Line drawings

  photos-3/9.jpg
  

• Line drawings

  photos-3/10.jpg
  

• Line drawings

  photos-3/11.jpg
  

• Line drawings

  photos-3/13.jpg
  

• Line drawings

  photos-3/14.jpg
  

• Line drawings

  photos-3/15.jpg
  

• Line drawings

  photos-3/16.jpg
  

Bruno Munari Catalogue Galleria dell ‘Obelisco, Via Sistina, Roma, 1977

The first thing that strikes one’s attention in Tilak’s drawing, is the fact that the curved line predominates over the straight line. And one could certainly say that his drawing is made exclusively of curved lines: the few straight lines to be found are there precisely because he cannot do without them, but if one looks carefully, these lines which seem straight are in reality a segment of a curve whose radius is very large. If Lobachevsky, the famous inventor of spherical geometry, who lived in the first half of the nineteenth century, could have seen these drawings, he would have liked them because of the predominance of curved lines. But these drawings of Tilak are constructed with this type of line, not so much for reasons which non-Euclidean geometry suggests to the mind; on the contrary, I believe, because in his own country he grew up and was formed in the midst of these signs. The Sinhala script is all made up of curved lines, but not curves made with a compass, curves made by hand, small, large, of any variable radius, with flourishes or not. Also in the art forms of Sri Lanka the images are constructed like this, sinuous, soft, full of life. This curved line of Tilak’s runs over the paper, is a dynamic line, perhaps follows the observer’s eye which discovers a world in its wholeness and in its detail. The line runs and draws a bullock but not all of it, just enough to be understood, and then runs away to draw a person, but not all, because it must also let you see that there is a tree; a few strokes are enough and above the tree you discover a big bird and the line has already gone away. This type of visual communication acts on the memory of the spectator, so that if Tilak suggests the head of an ox with a decorated horn and then depicts only a part of the back and then disappears, I see all the ox and I also know that it is decorated and so I can think of a festivity. This mode of drawing of Tilak’s is therefore a very essential mode, not boring and pedantic, but stimulating so that also those who look at the drawing are compelled to participate with pleasure in the reading of the visual message.