A Walk Among Lines

I've always loved looking at line drawings. Maybe it was all the art lessons I spent putting pencil, crayon, and much later, charcoal to paper, the scraping and the smudging, the sooty fingertips and wrists, the fact of creating something with a well-timed or ill-advised stroke, I'm not sure. There were moments when I enjoyed this, and equally there were moments when I resented the betrayal of my lines. Sometimes there was (what seemed to me) an insurmountable gap between what I wanted to draw and what actually took shape, at other times the shape and form were right, but the lines themselves looked hesitant and tentative instead of being liquid and fluid. I'd flip through all the instructional art books my father had collected, and each of them held drawings that seemed impossibly perfect - a few lines, drawn energetically and elegantly, putting together a picture that was no less than a painting. I wanted for my drawings to have that spirit and verve, but there was no getting around it - lines and line drawings were a rite of passage, and the only way to push past the limitations of my lines was through regular practice. Woe betide the inconsistent art student! A few days away from pencil and paper, and my lines would flag. 

Couple - II Lovers by Jogen Chowdhury

I've lost track of when exactly I stopped taking weekly art lessons but whenever I've gone back, I start by drawing lines. And at the risk of repeating myself, you only have to tell me about a line drawing exhibit and I will find a way to be there. There's something magical about line drawings - they represent an idea in evolution, they have the quality of an artistic fingerprint, they can span the continuum from simple and spare to vivid and sensuous. As with the best verse, there's little room for obfuscation - the line is art at its most transparent, a reliable 'tell' of artistic talent and sometimes, artistic intent. Lines are, simply put, hard taskmasters.   

Lantern by Bikash Bhattacharjee

Don't believe me? Do? Either way, visit the Jehangir Nicholson Gallery for a look at 40 odd line drawings curated by none other than Sunil Patwardhan. Called "Taking the Line for a Walk," (a name borrowed from Paul Klee's famous quote), the show is altogether excellent. The great Indian modernists, and their successors, are  each shown engaged in their own particular trysts with the line. Whether it is Tyeb Mehta, who would much rather work without lines but has a distinctive style irrespective; or Ara, whose 'Nude,' composed entirely of charcoal and smudges, has a sensuous, smooth quality; Paritosh Sen, whose 'Gorilla,' composed of deft charcoal strokes, is all muscle and bristle and snarl; Jogen Chowdhury, whose creamishly thick squiggles collapse perspective while retaining coherent form, but who is equally adept with the delicate, multi-layered cross-hatchings that lend texture and weight but also lightness to large figurative bodies (look at Couple - II Lovers); Arpita Singh, whose scenes of discreet domestic disquiet have an almost stippled quality; Bikash Bhattarchjee, whose 'Lantern' is a masterpiece in subtle charcoal technique; Sadanand Bakre's limpid and monumental forms; Nikhil Biswas's angry, whirling pen and ink swirls. There are so many gems of works and almost-works in this exhibition. But my favourite is the last work I saw - a young girl in pigtails by Lalu Prasad Shaw. Square, solid and sad and rendered with an expert, economical expressiveness. And I haven't even mentioned V.S. Gaitonde, Ganesh Pyne, Raza, Souza yet.  

If you're at all interested in what poetry, calligraphy, scribbles, shadow, solidity and delicacy look like when set in motion by a few flicks of an accomplished artist's wrists, look at line drawings. Anywhere works, but this show could be a nice place to start.