Yes, John Keats, a cosmic "thing of beauty is a joy forever"; certainly, "it can never pass into (labouring) nothingness".
 

Now, within the context of our Philosophic Science, what is Beauty, what exactly is the study of Beauty? Our questioning answer: It's the stringent study, the active investigation,  the praxical analysis of Cosmos, of Nature, of our corporeal body; affirming and identifying its esthetic activities and objectives. In nuce, among other component entities,  Esthetics  -- (differentiating it from market and religious Aesthetics), supported by and related to our Epistemology, Logics and Aethics (differentiating it from business Ethics and globalized Morality), -- is the Study of Cosmic, of Natural Beauty.

Thus, what is Beauty?

Logically, it is that which naturally delights all the senses, is physical loveliness, is that relation which exalts us as a healthy, natural  body and a sane, social mind, striving towards emancipatory elegance and historic excellence.

In everyday life, Beauty may include some of the following, but not necessarily so:  the beautiful and the ugly, the slime and the sublime, the banausic and the elegant;  good taste, criticism, fine art, contemplation, sensuous enjoyment, carnal delicacies, goodies and nighties of the market, charisma and charm.

How do we enjoy beauty? What is an esthetic experience?

Which life experiences are definitely esthetic?

We could only mention some which certainly are not; the fundamental pillars of Labour, the infernal four D's:

Deprivation (economic exploitation);
Domination  (political repression, the State);
Discrimination (social prejudice, racism);
Dehumanization (alienation).

Now, let the fatherland, the patria, illustrate to us what is gruesome, systemic beauty at rest; what is frozen, morbid, moribund aesthetics. Many a philosophic thinker tried very hard to spotlight beauty, but, in East and West, North and South, labour -- slavery, feudalism and capitalism --  progressively darkened the esthetic horizon,
ushered in eternal "dark ages" of arrogance, ignorance, obscurantism and bigotry. Hence, beauty, already nearly converted into merchandise, fled this macabre scene,
towards safer historic spheres.

Now and then, in faraway emancipatory  realms, at the utmost outer edges of space and time, void of all forms of foreign tourism and alienated boredom, in invisible, invulnerable, invincible flowery gardens and meadows, we could still hear its beautiful nightingales, its charming, enchanting love-birds, eternally bewitching and inspiring us with their natural, beautiful, pandemonic symphonies.

B.The Flash Tour Begins: Divine, Erotic, Sex Tourism

Hegel, in his theory of art,  would define beauty as "the sensuous embodiment of the Absolute Idea." For many, an "aesthetic" attitude is to divorce, to cut oneself off from practical responsibility, is a kind of distancing or standing back from social and emancipatory issues. Ideologically, unknowingly, they take their cue from Kant, or even from Edward Bullough's essay, published in 1912, " 'Psychical Distance' as a Factor in Art and an Aesthetic Principle".

What kind of "aesthetic distance" is envisaged here? In any stereotypical,  unhappy, sadomasochistic marriage, is the withering away of her universal "beauty" really the reason why the erstwhile fiery wife is now being divorced by her debauched, physically overtrained, overstrained macho? Did she loose her aesthetic "flex appeal"? If aesthetically he is distancing himself from her now, then, by what "human right" or even "double standard",  in which "magna carta",  did he ever call her "beautiful"? And, vice versa? Are the exploitative products of labour beautiful - a dress, a car, a building, a city, Cape Town, Vancouver, San Francisco?  A rather high price for beauty! Are a natural panorama, the sunrise, the full moon, a rainbow or an "untouched" jungle esthetic?  A priceless, prizeless beauty!

At least, in defence of Kant, we must admit that he did not favour "distance". In his "transcendental aesthetics", somehow he approximates us in a "moral" cosmic-ontic fashion. He classified the normal aesthetic recipient as being "disinterested", neither treating his/her "beautiful object" -- as it is in itself -- as a speaking-tool or vehicle of pleasure or curiosity nor as a Machiavellian means to an end.  Similarly, in his work, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung [1819; The World as Will and Idea], Arthur Schopenhauer propagated the idea that anything could be seen as beautiful, as long as it is being regarded in independence of one's will, independent of its "use-value"; we could add: independent of its capitalist "exchange-value".  Also, Friedrich Schiller distanced artistic plays, creation and appreciation from everyday reality, from social misery and poverty, thus, he divorced "beauty" and surrendered it to feudalist leisure and bourgeois pleasure:

"With the agreeable, the good, the perfect, man is merely in earnest,
   but with beauty he plays."

(Briefe über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen [1794-95; Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man])

Derived from the above, what then is "aesthetic experience"?
 

1. The aesthetic object is an object of sensory enjoyment and pleasure;
     it is heard, seen, or even imagined in sensory, sensual form.

2. The aesthetic object is being contemplated; also approached as a
     repository of significance and value.

On the face value, we could even agree with these artists and philosophers,
however, at a closer, a second look, as explained before, we discover that the two  views are aeons apart. But, "historically", what about Eastern and Ancient Aesthetics? Let's just take a flash-tour across the globe, paying some "beautiful" Taj Mahal's a very short, cordial visit.

C. Asian Aesthetics

India - The Veil of Maya

In ancient Indian philosophical, theosophical and religious writings, we encounter a strange disparagement of the sensory, sensuous, objective world as being mere illusion. However, at the same time, we find a world outlook of "karma", of embodiment; a
doctrine of worship, but, at the same time, of earthly enjoyment and pleasure.

The Great God Krishna indulges in exaggerated fantasies of erotic and physical power. If one looks at the various temples, among other techniques,  artistically the use of  mystical gestures portray divine "beauty", erotic sensuality. To express human feelings, ancient Indian philosophers extensively utilized  contemplative abstraction, especially the conception of aesthetic flavour,  rasa.

China - Art to awaken Aesthetic Frenzy