The most remarkable feature of JAF's intellectual personality is the sheer scope of his interests, militantly accomplished in a body of work exceeding one hundred books and many hundreds of articles which he divided into "history of culture, history of art, olisipographic studies, monographs, essays, and fiction." And although it is in the field of Art History that he has gained most recognition, it is worth noting that his first book was a remarkable novel (Natureza Morta,1949). He constantly reaffirm ed that he had the "imagination of a novelist," which he fully embraced after his retirement in 1992. Among his successively published works of fiction, the most notable are Buridan (2002), A Bela Angevina (2005), José e os Outros (2006), Ricardo Coração de Leão (2007), João sem Terra (2008), and A Guerra e a Paz (2010). Also noteworthy are his memoirs — Memórias para o ano 2000 and Memórias para após 2000,the latter published in 2012 — which constitute an impressive wealth of material on Portuguese cultural life for over 70 years, naturally filtered through the author's subjectivity.

In 1949, at the age of 27 years,he published the booklet Balanço das Actividades Surrealistas em Portugal [Assessment of Surrealist Activities in Portugal] where he reported on the activities of the Surrealist Group of which he was one of the founders, thus entering Art History via art criticism. As is typical in this field,his " assessment " was partial (he would always consider his painter friends to be key figures on the art scene) and militant, against the culture of the Estado Novo, but also against Neo-Realism, which was supported by the Communist Party. In his view,the core of art was imagination, which could not be subordinated to political program me s or ideological militancy. Throughout the 1950s, he deepened his reflection on contemporary art in Portugal, still rooted in his commitment to the art of his time. In 1957, he published the first systematic study on Amadeo de Souza Cardoso,relaunching the work of the almost forgotten painter and considering him the only Portuguese avant-garde artist. Within the activities of the Galeria de Março,he engaged with many artists, from the oldest (Almada and Botelho, for example) to the youngest. Regarding the latter artists, extending his enthusiasm for the surrealism of his youth, he became particularly interested in Abstract painters, which he came to look upon as the supreme expression of Modernism, in accordance with international art theory at the time. During this period of great creativity, he published the journal Córnio (Unicórnio, Bicórnio, Tricórnio, Tetracórnio, and Pentacórnio), which included the participation of figures such as António Sérgio, Eduardo Lourenço, and Jorge de Sena. Also noteworthy was his essay Charles Chaplin: Self-Made Myth, published in Paris in 1957, which reflects his ongoing passion for cinema.

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