Paisaje o país es el nombre que la historiografía del arte da al género pictórico que representa escenas de la naturaleza, tales como montañas, valles, árboles, ríos y bosques. Casi siempre se incluye el cielo (que recibe el nombre técnico de celaje), y las condiciones atmosféricas pueden ser un elemento importante de la composición. Además del paisaje natural, también se trata, como un género específico, el paisaje urbano. Tradicionalmente, el arte de paisajes plasma de forma realista algún paisaje real, pero puede haber otros tipos de paisajes, como los que se inspiran en los sueños (paisaje onírico, muy usado en el surrealismo). En la historia de la pintura, el paisaje fue adquiriendo poco a poco cada vez más relevancia, desde su aparición como fondo de escenas de otros géneros (como la pintura de historia o el retrato) hasta constituirse como género autónomo en la pintura holandesa del siglo XVII. También es un motivo esencial para la pintura japonesa. Dentro de la jerarquía de los géneros, el paisaje ocupaba un lugar muy bajo, superior sólo al bodegón.

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Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction in art of landscapes – natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view – with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works, landscape backgrounds for figures can still form an important part of the work. Sky is almost always included in the view, and weather is often an element of the composition. Detailed landscapes as a distinct subject are not found in all artistic traditions, and develop when there is already a sophisticated tradition of representing other subjects. The two main traditions spring from Western painting and Chinese art, going back well over a thousand years in both cases. The recognition of a spiritual element in landscape art is present from its beginnings in East Asian art, drawing on Daoism and other philosophical traditions, but in the West only becomes explicit with Romanticism. Landscape views in art may be entirely imaginary, or copied from reality with varying degrees of accuracy. If the primary purpose of a picture is to depict an actual, specific place, especially including buildings prominently, it is called a topographical view. Such views, extremely common as prints in the West, are often seen as inferior to fine art landscapes, although the distinction is not always meaningful; similar prejudices existed in Chinese art, where literati painting usually depicted imaginary views, while professional court artists painted real views, often including palaces and cities. The word "landscape" entered the modern English language as landskip (variously spelt), an anglicization of the Dutch landschap, around the start of the 17th century, purely as a term for works of art, with its first use as a word for a painting in 1598. Within a few decades it was used to describe vistas in poetry, and eventually as a term for real views. However the cognate term landscaef or landskipe for a cleared patch of land had existed in Old English, though it is not recorded from Middle English.

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