Representing 'Scenes et Types': Wassily Kandinsky in Tunisia, 1904-1905

Wassily Kandinsky's Tunisian works of 1905 have received little attention in the extensive literature on the artist, which traditionally promotes the artist's role as a pioneer of modernist abstraction during his Munich period (1896-1914). In recent investigations, the Tunisian pictures tend to be grouped with other representational works dating to the artist's early career, all usually explained in terms of Kandinsky's experience and continued interest in ethnographic practice. While the artist's early engagement with ethnography clearly resonates in his widely known paintings with Russian themes dating from 1903 to 1907, his Tunisian works cannot be deciphered simply in relation to such ethnographic interests. Instead, Kandinsky's set of tempera pictures featuring Tunisian scenes must be placed in the specific context of French colonial culture, and with regard to the heritage of European Orientalism. In the present study, many of the motifs of Kandinsky's Tunisian sketches, oil studies, and tempera pictures are identified for the first time and assessed in relation to the information provided by period tourist guidebooks, contemporary travelogues, and commercial photography. When appropriate, works by Kandinsky's companion Gabriele Munter are also examined in the evaluation of his artistic production. The artist couple's visits and excursions in Tunisia, rather than suggesting any independent exploration, closely correspond to the recommendations available to tourists in such authoritative sources as the Baedeker's Handbook for Travellers. This study focuses attention on the Tunisia experienced by the artists, following their movements with reference to travel guides and examining artistic output in the context of a country increasingly transformed by French colonial administration. While Kandinsky's detailed and often carefully annotated sketches demonstrate his close attention to architecture, costume, and daily activities witnessed in Tunisia, his finished tempera pictures evoke the familiar categories known as 'scenes and types' promoted by popular photography and travel literature of the colonial era.