Landscape is analyzed here principally in terms of its aesthetic value and function. As an expression of a sentimental response it is concerned not only with natural beauty but also the world of human beings, since it has always been integral to the creativity of our visionary sensibility. In it we find ethical truth since we celebrate not only the wildness of nature but also the life-space that unifies human beings and the site of the contingent and the possible, that which Aristotle referred to as endekhomenon. Modern history serves as a starting point for an examination of the present significance of the landscape in Europe. The image of its countless particulars and nature’s “spiritual physiognomy” seem to respond to the full spectrum of our most intimate emotions; we are convinced that something that transcends the vast panorama of discrete elements must exist, namely the landscape. It is more than the sum of the parts, the individual fragments of our perception scattered along the continuum of our sensibility or the attraction of mental processes. It is the spirit of an infinite and magical connectedness of forms. The notion of landscape and beautiful landscape develops both in history and in individuals, bound up with the rhythm of lines and surfaces that human beings invent almost instinctively. It is the outcome of the art of culture, the poesis of individuals and communities.