Praia Grande

Keil, an isolated and travelled spirit, expressed himself with melancholic sentimentalism which relates him to late romanticism. This scene, scarcely approached by Portuguese painters at the time, presents the open browns with a luminosity composed of dark tones that fall onto the sand and sea. A figure contemplates this scenery, representing the meditative mood of the artist like a reflected image. The play of light and shadow, understood in soft tones, expresses a sensation of a retreat to Vale de Colares, where the artist lived, connecting it to this sentimentalism which directs us towards a new manner of observing nature. Keil extracts his potential from the spirituality inherent to the interpretation of light and darkness, with a religious undertone, from the interiorised relation of isolation and cosmopolitanism. Nature as a sanctuary creates a symbolic refinement, a rare theme in Portuguese painting.