Do you see an influence of India?
Well, I think I do 🙂
While Spain concentrated on the gold of the New World, Portugal was more interested in trade with India.
Spices and silk were the riches of the Orient, and since the advent of Islam, trade with India was indirect and much more expensive.
Venice, on the height of its own power at the time of the fourth crusade, the one that Enrico Dandolo infamously directed against Constantinople, had almost grabbed a monopoly on the eastern trade, and breaking that monopoly was what Portugal was after.
Whatever the influences are (I’m only speculating), this cloister is as good as it gets in European architecture. Of course, being one of the main sights of Lisbon, it is always full of people. You need time to get the images that you want.
This is again one of those cases where one visit is not enough. I’d like to see this place through the seasons, at different times of the day, before sunrise or after sunset. Well, that’s the difference between visiting a place and living there. If you visit, you have to accept what you get. Not that I got it bad though. I’m just saying 🙂