Lake Landscape, China

The dictionary definition of aesthetic perpetuates Baumgarten's error and defines it as "things perceptible by the senses as opposed to things thinkable or immaterial", "pertaining to the sense of the beautiful or the science of aesthetics"Macquarie Dictionary, 1981., or "of, relating to, or dealing with aesthetics or the beautiful". Aesthetics is regarded as a branch of philosophy, that which "deduces from nature and taste the rules and principles of art, the theory of the fine arts; the science of the beautiful..." or "dealing with the nature of the beautiful and with judgements concerning beauty".
Thus landscapes have often been the subject of inquiry within the broad framework of aesthetics in the quest for an understanding of beauty.