For Mulas, photography is thought. In order to indicate the creative process of the artists he observed and portrayed working in their studios, he often used the word “operation.” It is a term close to the act of photographing and, in a broader sense, closer to mental elaboration than to manual work. Perusing his writings, a reader will find numerous passages where he seems to programmatically enunciate the desire that is the rational aspect of the artistic activity of conquering the scene where his pictures are shot.
This is the case with the notes on David Smith, where Mulas explicitly points out the importance of the artist’s mental operation in choosing pieces and executing his sculptures, as opposed to the mere physical operation. Or there is the consonance that Mulas expresses with the ironic analysis conducted by Roy Lichtenstein on the presumed spontaneity of the expressionist brushstroke, hemmed in by the thick outlines and rigid stylistic code of comic-book drawing. [...] 
