How the brain paints the beauty of a landscape

How does a view of nature gain its gloss of beauty? We know that the sight of beautiful landscapes engages the brain’s reward systems. But how does the brain transform visual signals into esthetic ones? Why do we perceive a mountain vista or passing clouds as beautiful? A research team from the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics has taken up this question and investigated how our brains proceed from merely seeing a landscape to feeling its esthetic impact.