Executed in 1917, L'apparizione della primavera (The Epiphany of Spring) by Carlo Carrà emerges as a paradigmatic expression of Italian Metaphysical painting during its most decisive phase. Executed in Ferrara, within the secluded and reflective environment of the Ospedale Neurologico Militare where Carrá was hospitalised during the World War I, the work reflects the intense intellectual and artistic exchange between Carrà and Giorgio de Chirico. Their encounter, initiated through the intervention of the critic Ardengo Soffici, rapidly developed into a profound collaboration, culminating in the foundation of the Scuola Metafisica. In this period of enforced seclusion and recovery, both artists articulated a new visual language grounded in silence, enigma, and the poetics of the static image.

In L'apparizione della primavera (The Epiphany of Spring), the influence of de Chirico is perceptible in the rationalised architectural space and the classical austerity, but also in the seated mannequin figure whose pose closely recalls that of De Chirico’s Il Vaticinatore, painted a few years earlier. This echo is not merely compositional but conceptual, signalling Carrà’s absorption and subtle transformation of de Chirico’s metaphysical lexicon. While the mannequin in de Chirico’s work embodies an almost oracular detachment, Carrà’s figure appears imbued with a latent humanity, rendered with a sense of introspective stillness and psychological nuance. Set against a desolate, idealised piazza, one of the recurring settings in both artists’ œuvres, the figure becomes a contemplative presence within a dreamlike tableau. The geometry of the composition, marked by clarity of line and a deliberate flatness, imbues the image with an atmosphere of suspended time, evoking both estrangement and order.

Right: Fig. 2., Giorgio De Chirico, I Vaticinatori, pencil on paper, 29 by 22.4 cm., 1916. Private Collection. © DACS 2025
The present work was gifted to Carrà’s close friend, the writer and Futurist Giuseppe Raimondi, on the eve of his departure for the war, serving both as a talisman and a testament to their intellectual kinship. Raimondi would later channel this spirit into the founding of the avant-garde journal La Raccolta, a publication committed to renewing Italian culture and whose copy is attached to the reverse of the present work. In this context, L'apparizione della primavera (The Epiphany of Spring) stands not only as a metaphysical image but also as a symbolic gesture of renewal amidst a time of profound historical rupture.