This picture clearly demonstrates how distinct Vieira Da Silva's style had become by the end of the Forties. Her paintings were now made up of a labyrinthine web of lines. Squares and rectangles inter-lock to create a unique, visionary architecture, with strong diagonals creating a sense of perspective. In this work the combination of these elements suggests an aerial view over a vast modern city. Vieira Da Silva's style of linear abstraction can be read on many levels; for example, this view might have been inspired by the over-ground metro in Paris, where she had worked, or the multi-leveled architecture of Lisbon, where she was born.
The skilful alternation between squares blocked in with delicate blue and grey tones, which creates a chequerboard effect, not only reinforces the feeling of depth in the piece but also clarifies the title "La Pluie": the pale infusions of colour giving the work a watery luminousity. "Le Chambre Grise", painted in 1951, now in the Tate Collection, closely resembles "La Pluie", and this demonstrates the consistency of Vieira Da Silva's style. In "Le Chambre Grise" the gridded lines and tilting planes converge to suggest an interior rather than an exterior view, but the effect is the same, and the alternating blocks of pale colours create the same magical effects.