4. Line

4 - 02 Lines of KK Hebbar
MF Hussain's predecessor KK Hebbar is another great Indian artist and is renowned for his simplistic line drawings which he calls them as 'singing lines.' In the preface to a collection of his drawings, he says, "A line is a series of dots in space. A line when drawn to reproduce a form, seen or imagined, becomes a drawing of that form or object." He says that as he achieved the skill of accurately reproducing what he had seen or imagined, he "started searching for the hidden beauty in the interplay of lines, the evocative quality of straight and curved lines. This quality of rhythmic movement of lines began to engage my attention more and more. I realised that lines were capable of singing and dancing."

Hebbar has his own peculiar style of eliminating details and only depicting the compositional characteristics of his subject. Their beauty lies in his ability to retain the 'soul' of the subject. So, whether it's the amorous sculptures on ancient Indian temples or dancers performing on stage, or just women huddled in conversation, his lines magically transport his subjects into the realm of the sublime.

That Hebbar's nudes have not evoked the wrath of the puritanical Indian society can be attributed to the fact that in simplifying his subjects into linear elements, he has also eliminated those details, which help in the identification of his sources of inspiration.

4 - 03 TYPES OF LINE

a. PARALLEL LINES (Horizontality and Verticality) :
Lines assume a technical role, when they start defining the intervals of space. Several vertical lines, of identical size, placed at regular intervals (equal distance apart), as in a picket fence, will create a sequence. The same lines placed at irregular intervals will guide the eye away from their powerful parallelism, to the spatial dynamics that arise between them. Qualitative differences in these parallel lines (such as making some lines thicker and others thinner, some longer, others shorter) will again draw attention to them, and their parallelism.

Verticals and horizontals are structural complements: lending proportion and character to each other. They describe the essential two-dimensionality of the surface upon which they are drawn. When they interact, they create open and closed areas associated with tectonics, systems, and structure of all kinds. For instance, the four minarets of the Taj Mahal are the parallel vertical forces, supporting and enhancing its inherent horizontality.

b. RADIATING LINES:
When the directional quality of the composition seems to emerge from, or converge towards, the actual centre of the format, or its focal point, it conveys radiation.

The sun with the rays of light emerging from it is the simplest example.

Another good example is the wheel; where the peripheral circle acts as a circular format, while the spokes of the wheel, emerging from the exact centre of the circle and radiating in all directions to the periphery, denote the inward pulling and outward pushing perceptual forces seen in the circle.

c. CURVED LINES:
Straight lines do not exist in nature. Neither do perfect circles. All natural forms, and events, are the results of a dynamic-static synthesis. Unequal tensions are the true order of nature.

Stress and strain, tension and compression follow curves. Growth follows a curve, liquids flow in the form of curves, objects hurtling through space follow a curvilinear trajectory and erosion creates curved forms and surfaces. The lever construction of the human body favours curved motion. Animals reveal the mastery of circular movements in the paths they make through woods and fields; so do birds in their graceful aerial choreography.

Consciously or otherwise, a designer works with curves- the serpentine lines of flow, the analytic curves or conic sections (hyperbola, parabola, and ellipse), the logarithmic spiral, catenary curves and flat curves. It may be noted that particularly appealing forms reveal considerable contrast in the kinds of curves (ellipses or parabolas) and shallow or fast curves (hyperbolas), long and short curves. They flow into one another with a naturalness and inevitability that is usually absent from the pure curves of mathematics.