Aesthetic appreciation of landscape

This chapter focuses on the landscape as place and the aesthetic, taking its Greek root in aesthesis, as concerned with people sensory engagement and enjoyment, or otherwise, of place. The development of most interest for people is the appreciation of the sublime in landscape. What sets aesthetic experience, response and judgement apart from, for example, moving through a landscape, discussing last night&s;s TV or whether the acreage could yield more profit if it were turned over to potatoes, is a particular kind of attention. The qualities revealed by a considered and careful engagement with a landscape could produce rich aesthetic experiences beyond those that an initially appealing landscape can create. The relationship between aesthetic qualities and the properties that facilitate them is helpfully discussed in a classic paper by Frank Sibley. Wind turbines on fellsides, coastlines and open moorland can be presented as desecrating the landform and ruining the aesthetic quality of particular landscapes.