Illustrations ix

Abbreviations xiii

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction: Tropicalization: The Aesthetics and Politics of Space in Jamaica and the Bahamas 1

1. Framing “The New Jamaica”: Feasting on the Picturesque Tropical Landscape 27

2. Developing the Tropics: The Politics of the Picturesque in the Bahamas 92

3. Through the Looking Glass: Visualizing the Sea as Icon of the Bahamas 156

4. Diving into the Racial Waters of Beach Space in Jamaica: Tropical Modernity and the Myrtle Bank Hotel’s Pool 204

5. “I Am Rendered Speechless by Your Idea of Beauty”: The Picturesque in History and Art in the Postcolony 252

Epilogue: Tropical Futures: Civilizing Citizens and Uncivilizing Tourists 297

Notes 307

References 331

Illustration Credits 349

Index 355

Krista Thompson is the winner of the 2009 David C. Driskell Award, presented by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta.

“An Eye for the Tropics: Tourism, Photography and Framing the Caribbean Landscape, which concentrates on Jamaica and the Bahamas, teases out the issues at stake in promotional representations of the islands in the popular medium of photography (from postcards to slide presentations) and underscores the connections between the visual marketing of the islands and the politics of race. . . . An Eye for the Tropics reveals some essential reflections upon the image-making machinery of tourism.” — Melanie Vandenbrouck-Przybylski, Art History

“An Eye for the Tropics is a valuable contribution to Caribbean studies. In particular, it does an amiable job in alerting scholars to the problems inherent in regarding postcards and other photographic representations of the region as somehow truer, or more objective, than other historical documents.” — Carl Thompson, New West Indian Guide

“A wryly intelligent examination of the ways that postcard and poster depictions of the Caribbean have influenced and been influenced by the island’s tourist economies.” — Nicholas Laughlin, Antilles weblog of Caribbean Review of Books

“Although it frequently seems that the old adage holds true, and there are really no new ideas under the sun, only new writers (or something to that effect), An Eye for the Tropics reads as a maiden, thoroughly researched, and highly successful journey over previously unexplored territory.” — Melanie Archer, The Caribbean Review of Books

“One of the first studies to critically interrogate the visual culture of the Caribbean through the lens of both popular art and fine art, it’s an important book that, no doubt, will continue to force the question of an distinct Caribbean art history, singular from a similarly contentious, African American chronicle, and impacted by the parallel histories of economic underdevelopment in the region and Western nostalgia for a present-day, accessible paradise.” — Richard J. Powell, Small Axe

Krista Thompson is the winner of the 2009 David C. Driskell Award, presented by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta.

“An Eye for the Tropics: Tourism, Photography and Framing the Caribbean Landscape, which concentrates on Jamaica and the Bahamas, teases out the issues at stake in promotional representations of the islands in the popular medium of photography (from postcards to slide presentations) and underscores the connections between the visual marketing of the islands and the politics of race. . . . An Eye for the Tropics reveals some essential reflections upon the image-making machinery of tourism.” —Melanie Vandenbrouck-Przybylski, Art History

“An Eye for the Tropics is a valuable contribution to Caribbean studies. In particular, it does an amiable job in alerting scholars to the problems inherent in regarding postcards and other photographic representations of the region as somehow truer, or more objective, than other historical documents.” —Carl Thompson, New West Indian Guide

“A wryly intelligent examination of the ways that postcard and poster depictions of the Caribbean have influenced and been influenced by the island’s tourist economies.” —Nicholas Laughlin, Antilles weblog of Caribbean Review of Books

“Although it frequently seems that the old adage holds true, and there are really no new ideas under the sun, only new writers (or something to that effect), An Eye for the Tropics reads as a maiden, thoroughly researched, and highly successful journey over previously unexplored territory.” —Melanie Archer, The Caribbean Review of Books

“One of the first studies to critically interrogate the visual culture of the Caribbean through the lens of both popular art and fine art, it’s an important book that, no doubt, will continue to force the question of an distinct Caribbean art history, singular from a similarly contentious, African American chronicle, and impacted by the parallel histories of economic underdevelopment in the region and Western nostalgia for a present-day, accessible paradise.” —Richard J. Powell, Small Axe

“In An Eye for the Tropics, Krista A. Thompson’s guiding preoccupation is with the construction of the Anglo-Creole Caribbean within a colonial regime of visual and discursive representation. How, she asks, was the Caribbean framed within the ocular terms of a tropical paradise as a space of verdant, quasi-primitive desire? The story she tells to answer this question is at once historically detailed and theoretically acute.” — David Scott, author of, Conscripts of Modernity: The Tragedy of Colonial Enlightenment

“Krista A. Thompson masterfully uses early-twentieth-century postcards to show how social, political, and racial issues are embedded in postcard imagery, while simultaneously analyzing current collecting practices. She makes substantial new and intriguing contributions to the understanding not simply of the historical tropicalization of the islands but of the persistence of such propagandistic attitudes in the economic survival of the islands today.” — Judith Bettelheim, Professor of Art and Art History, San Francisco State University

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