«La joie de vivre tropicale. Visioni europee del lussureggiante»

This essay explores the European gaze on the Tropics. In particular, the analyses focuses on the happiness and pleasure imperative associated to the torrid zone and on a male western vision of the feminine producing a sense of wonder and delight. The article considers the emotional perturbation provoked by two features of the indigenous lands, arousing desire in the stranger in search of himself in the tropics: the lush vegetation and the indigenous women delicious cinnamon skin. This broad overview on tropical female simulacra traces the cognitive approach to an amazing flora and and skin, neither black nor white, of three “exemplars”: Christopher Columbus, Paul Gauguin, Bronislaw Malinowski. The experiences of the Tropics of these European, symbols of conquest, art or science, are read through their biographical writing. These narratives of the self in the tropics, however distant in time, placed in perspective, allow to reflect on the European cultural production of the exotic and of female delighting bodies, legitimizing the western anthropophagic desire.