If you remember who it was you could tell me. I know what! I'll put my answer here below. It'll be a totally new concept, a question AND an answer. What d'y' think?
Here's my answer: Forest, rivers, oceans etc. are not inherently beautiful. People came to think of them as beautiful because that's where they could find shade, food, water, rest and so on. That's what I think.
An interesting take and not wrong. It's just that there is more to it than that. A flower, for instance. It has no purpose except fragrance and color for us. And yet, most of us respond. It is light and shadow and color that attracts our higher intuition. Something responds to the essence of life expressed that way.
But, we also respond as you say to what gives us sustenance, comfort, security and the like. It is also true that almost everything can be explained as beautiful or ugly depending on the lens you look through. If you see things ugly, then they are. I think the more evolved our thinking becomes, the more we see beauty in everything. The fact that nothing is permanent and always tagable makes me appreciate the fact that it has been created, no matter what it is. It is expression and all expression no matter how hideous or beautiful is Divine to me.
On some level. I am not supporting serial killers. I am seeing how being totally objective is Buddah-like though.
I did about a month or so ago -was along the line of saying if God/supernatural creation is non-existent then what conscious awareness does mother nature have to make things beautiful?