The Arrival of Spring

Author: Sofía Bassi

Title: La entrada de la primavera (The Arrival of Spring)

Date: 1967

Material: Oil on masonite

Dimensions: 46.9 × 34.3 inches

Location: Private collection

Rights: Sofía Bassi Foundation

The Arrival of Spring presents a vision of seasonal transition charged with symbolic resonance. From the depths of a dense forest, a spectral female figure emerges. Her body dissolves into floral patterns as if shaped by the very forces that govern germination and decay. Her luminous, mask-like face suggests not a mortal subject, but a spiritual entity tied to the cycles of growth, fertility, and renewal.

The composition brings together multiple symbolic elements. A serpent coils at the base of a tree, invoking regeneration and subterranean knowledge, while a swan-like creature, poised in stillness, gestures toward transformation and transcendence. Intertwining roots and biomorphic textures create a landscape in constant metamorphosis—at once vegetal and visionary.

Bassi’s use of saturated greens and phosphorescent blues infuses the image with an uncanny vitality, as if the forest itself were alive with latent energies. She also experimented with techniques of plastic automatism, characteristic of surrealist practice, evident in the fluid gestures and disembodied hands that emerge within the foliage. Through The Arrival of Spring, Bassi presents spring not only as a season but as the awakening of nature’s hidden powers.