Landscape painting

Landscape painting, often called landscape art, is the depiction of natural scenery. Artists capture elements like mountains, valleys, rivers, trees, and forests. A primary goal is to present a wide view where all elements form a coherent composition. The sky is almost always included in these works. Weather often becomes a vital element of the composition itself.

While some landscapes serve as backgrounds for human figures, they can also exist as the main subject. This art form allows viewers to experience nature through a specific artistic lens.

To create a successful landscape, artists must manage how the viewer perceives space. They use a system called perspective to represent distance and scale. This allows a flat surface to suggest deep, three-dimensional space. Some artists solve the problem of depth by using mist or "dead ground" to separate the foreground from the distance. Others use a high aerial viewpoint to look down upon the world.

This technique helps bridge the gap between close objects and a distant, panoramic vista.

There are different ways to approach the subject of land. If a painting depicts a specific, real place with prominent buildings, it is called a topographical view. These views were very common as prints in the West. Another approach is to create entirely imaginary landscapes. In China, the tradition of *shan shui*, or "mountain-water," focuses on pure landscapes. In these works, the only sign of human life might be a single sage or a small hut.

These styles reflect different goals, from recording reality to expressing philosophical ideas.

Landscape art has two major, ancient traditions: Western and Chinese. In East Asian art, landscape painting has long held a spiritual element. This connection draws from Daoism and other philosophical traditions. In contrast, the West only made these spiritual connections explicit during the Romanticism period.

In East Asia, the classic ink painting was traditionally the most prestigious form of visual art. In the West, landscape art occupied a lower position in the hierarchy of genres for many centuries.

History shows that landscape painting evolved through many stages. The earliest "pure landscapes" without humans are Minoan frescos from around 1500 BCE.

In Ancient Egypt, hunting scenes in the Nile Delta provided a sense of place, though they focused more on individual plants and animals. Roman landscapes, such as those found in Pompeii, later used mosaics and frescos to decorate rooms. In the Middle Ages, Western interest in landscape mostly disappeared. It was only revived through small depictions of gardens or dense trees in religious works.

During the 15th century, landscape painting became established as a genre in Europe. It often served as a setting for religious themes, such as the Journey of the Magi. Luxury illuminated manuscripts, like the *Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry*, were very important for this development.

In the 16th century, the German Danube School produced some of the first pure landscape paintings.

Around this same time, Joachim Patinir developed the "world landscape." This style featured panoramic views and high viewpoints, a method perfected later by Pieter Brueghel the Elder.

Landscape art connects various fields of human thought and culture. It links visual art to poetry, as seen in the works of John Milton. It also connects to geography and the study of specific locations through topographical views. In East Asia, the practice was often linked to the literati, who were amateur scholar-artists and poets.

These artists often created images that illustrated their own poetic lines. Whether through the mathematical precision of perspective or the spiritual depth of ink painting, landscapes allow us to explore the relationship between humanity and the natural world.