Inner Simmering: Unveiling the Erotic in Kandinsky

Abstract

I o one, recalled Peggy Guggenheim in 1946, looked less like an artist than Kandinsky, who resembled Wall Street broker.' Guggenheim was not alone in finding Vasilii Kandinsky unconventionally formal and respectable for man of his calling. Fifty years earlier, when Kandinsky first forayed into Munich's art world, Igor Grabar' pegged him as Moscow lawyer.2 Kandinsky almost never used the informal or intimate form of youdu in German, tu in French, ty in Russian-with people outside his family. Nor did he cultivate bohemian appearance: photographs of the artist at work show him painting in (of all things!) suit and tie. And unlike many of his celebrated contemporaries, most notably Gauguin and Picasso, Kandinsky did not flaunt his sexual exploits, despite living in such permissive milieux as Munich and Paris. In particular, although he sometimes thought of himself as a Don Juan, he declined to indulge his audience with sexually provocative images.3 With the exception of sketches done during his studies in Munich, Kandinsky's