A Library on Fire

A friend of intellectuals, artists and writers, Vieira da Silva demonstrates a type of spiritual testimony in this well-known work. Predominantly vertical and horizontal lines, with the addition of some diagonal ones, build a strong rhythmic composition. It also features warm colours, predominantly reds and ochres, and very subtle lighting effects and transparencies. Vieira da Silva, a former student of Léger and, above all, Bissière, established herself as a highly outstanding member of the so-called "Second School of Paris", as she produced a pictorial miracle of, with her strong vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines, sometimes in a grid effect, providing abstraction with three-dimensionality. The title of this magnificent painting is, in a sense, metaphorical, and may allude to the burning of the Library of Alexandria and, above all, to the passion and ignition of the imagination and reason that reading awakens in us (text by Rui Afonso Santos).