Another nugget: At Belas Artes we were required to take a rather dense course in Aesthetics – Aesthetics 1,2 and 3 – in years two, three and four of our degree. Our professor was a very clever and lean young man who spoke very well ( although with a slight tendency to speak fast and gabble at times; this is not unusual amongst Lisbonites ) and who clearly knew the subject matter back to front. Over those three years he walked and talked us through a meaty bibliography that leaned heavily on Plato, Kant and Heidegger…and his personal favorite; Freud. It was in fact a very engaging course and moreover it was delivered very well by our young professor but none of what was lectured was easy to digest and after three years of it I’m not quite sure that I came to any conclusions about the root and reason of aesthetic appeal. Our classes were always double periods and for some reason they were either first thing in the morning or last thing late afternoon. I think it must have been a Friday evening and getting close to eight pm. We were all mentally shagged out as our professor began to wind down his lecture and for some reason that I no longer recall he suddenly digressed and got on to the topic of cubist painters. This might seem terribly obvious to some but until that moment I had never really contemplated what he went on to throw at us. In his opinion, he said, cubism was the most dynamic and true to life style of painting as what it sought to transmit was the incessant motion of life itself. BANG!!! And with that he wished us a good weekend. The room was completely silent and after a pregnant pause we all gradually began to drift off in twos and threes, looking stunned and rather wide-eyed and muttering amongst ourselves. I’ve never looked at a cubist painting again with the same eyes.