This painting entered the Cariplo Collection from the antique market in 1991. A photograph of the work in the archive of the Cariplo Foundation has on the back the signature of the artist confirming its authenticity and dating it to the 1980s, when he became established on the international art scene.

In an autobiographical note of 1982 Alinari refers to his long walks on the outskirts of the city through junk yards filled with old things, and his interest in the surprising effect of the random juxtaposition of abandoned things. From the 1960s this was the dominant theme of his research in which initially ideas drawn from children’s illustrations, graphic art and Pop Art could be found. During the 1980s his first fantastical landscapes began to appear, inspired by the 15th-century Tuscan figurative tradition and by popular fairy tales, densely populated by objects that seem to take on a life of their own.

This work in the Collection, datable to the end of the 1980s, is typical of his mature works as regards subject matter, vivid brilliant palette and especially the extremely refined pictorial technique adopting fields of smooth, thin, acrylic colours, short brushstrokes in relief and pencil and .tempera touches.

The title of the painting is probably inspired by the figure in tears depicted in the lefthand corner of the canvas enclosed with a wavy line in a space coloured in tones of grey, black and red. Perhaps he represents a visitor who is unhappy because he is unable to capture the secret life of things and the surrounding landscape, or sad because the beauty of the place is being destroyed by the factory spewing out its thick cloud of smoke.