Lithograph in 6 colours, mm 620x455 (plate), sheet mm 700x500. Exemplar 9/90 Pencil signature in the lower right margin G. de Chirico, number 9/90 in the lower left margin, title in the centre L'arcobaleno, dry stamps G de C and Alberto Caprini Stampatore in Roma in the lower marginEdoardo Brandani, Giorgio de Chirico. Catalogo dell'opera grafica 1969-1977, Edizioni Bora, Bologna, 1990- 1977, p. 79, n. 61. Beautiful exemplar. "Painting is the magic art, it is the fire lit by the last rays in the windows of the rich hostel, as in those of the humble hovel in front of the occiduous sun, it is the long sign, the wet sign, the flowing and still sign, that the dying wave prints on the warm sand, it is the flicker of the immortal lizard on the stone reddened by the meridian heat, it is the rainbow of reconciliation, on sad May afternoons, after the storm that recedes over there... . Giorgio de Chirico Painting, 1938".De Chirico studied art in Athens and Florence, before moving to Germany in 1906, where he entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Here he came into contact with the works of the philosophers Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer, as well as studying the works of Arnold Böcklin and Max Klinger. In the summer of 1909 he returned to Italy and spent six months in Milan. At the beginning of 1910 he moved back to Florence, where he painted The Enigma of an Autumn Afternoon, the first of his works in the "Piazza metafisica" series, after a personal experience in Piazza Santa Croce. The following year, de Chirico spent a few days in Turin on his way to Paris and was struck by what he called "the metaphysical aspect of Turin" in the architecture of its porticoes and piazzas. De Chirico lived in Paris until his enlistment in the army in May 1915, during the First World War. De Chirico's paintings executed between 1909 and 1914 brought him the greatest recognition. This period is known as the Metaphysical period. The works are characterised by images that evoke dark and oppressive atmospheres. At the beginning of this period, the models were urban landscapes inspired by Mediterranean cities. Gradually, the painter's attention shifted to studies of rooms crammed with objects, sometimes inhabited by mannequins. Almost immediately, the writer Guillaume Apollinaire praised Chirico's work and helped introduce him to the group that would later dedicate itself to Surrealism. In 1922, Yves Tanguy wrote that he was so impressed when he saw a de Chirico work in a gallery window that he decided to become an artist, even though he had never touched a paintbrush in his life. Other artists who have recognised Giorgio de Chirico's influence include Max Ernst, Salvador Dalí and René Magritte. De Chirico is considered one of the major influences of the Surrealist movement. De Chirico later abandoned the metaphysical style and produced several more realistic works. In 1925, De Chirico published the novel 'Hebdomeres', which the poet John Ashbery called probably one of the greatest literary works of Surrealism. It was translated into Spanish by César Aira and published in Argentina by Editorial Mansalva. The painter died in 1978 at the age of 90. Giorgio de Chirico's metaphysical painting is considered one of the main antecedents of the Surrealist movement. During his stay in Germany he was influenced by the Symbolist authors and the philosophy of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. Already in Paris (1911), he began to produce works with very striking images, based on the representation of urban spaces, in which architectural elements and the projection of shadows predominate and in which the human presence is usually absent. To this architectural rule are added representations of interiors, generally open to the outside, in which the artist usually places mannequins and sometimes other works (the representation of other works within the work itself, which is a characteristic of Surrealism, is already present in the author). In this way, he manages to create a strange, timeless space in his works, where one seems to find calm and silence. Presence is usually absent.