Landscape art portrays natural scenery mountains, valleys, forests, rivers and deserts. Although humans and animals may be represented, the main focus is the land around them.
Non-traditional landscapes consist of oceanscapes, moonscapes and cityscapes. Aerial landscapes are representations of the land from the sky.
Interior Roman frescos from the ruins of Pompeii depict the land around the village. It wasn't until the early 1400s that landscape painting was declared a genre in Europe.
Before photography, tourists purchased landscape paintings as souvenirs of the places they traveled as a way to preserve memories.
Artists who are famous for their landscape art are Frederic Church (USA), Winslow Homer (USA), Georgia O'Keefe (USA), Paul Cezanne (France), Camille Pissarro (France), Claude Monet (France), JMW Turner (England) and John Constable (England) among others.
There were several schools, or art movements, of paintings that focused on painting land and cityscapes, such as the American Barbizon School and the Hudson River Valley School.