Landscape facts for kids

Ruwenzori Mountains, Uganda, Great Rift Valley. The mountains formed about three million years ago in the late Pliocene, pushed up by tremendous forces originating deep within the earth’s crust.

Reekie Linn ('smoking pool'): clouds of spray rise above the plunge pool when the River Isla is in spate. It is a waterfall formed on the Highland Boundary Fault where hard metamorphic rocks to the north give way to the softer sedimentary rocks of Strathmore. This view is taken looking upriver towards the Bridge of Craigisla.

A landscape means an area of land as one can see it. This includes landforms, flora, fauna and human elements, for instance human activity or the built environment.

According to its meaning, lighting and weather conditions are part of landscape as well. Objects inside the building can sometimes be considered part of landscape as well.

Geology

The landscape is determined mainly by the underlying geology. This can be seen clearly in the East African Great Rift Valley. There almost everything in the landscape is caused by or connected with the pulling apart of Africa which is happening there. Even in Great Britain, a geologically quiet place, the whole landscape can be understood by understanding its geological past.

Etymology

The word was borrowed as a painters' term from Dutch during the 16th century, when Dutch artists began to become masters of the landscape genre. The Dutch word landschap had earlier meant simply “region, tract of land” but now meant “a picture depicting scenery on land”.

Images for kids

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  Autumn landscape in Rybiniszki, Latvia, watercolor by Stanisław Masłowski, 1902 (National Museum in Warsaw, Poland)

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  A typical Dutch landscape in South Holland

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  Kukle, Czech Republic

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  Medieval Ridge and Furrow above Wood Stanway, Gloucestershire, England.

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  The Batad rice terraces, The Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras, the first site to be included in the UNESCO World Heritage List cultural landscape category in 1995.

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  Stourhead garden, Wiltshire, England

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  Jichang Garden in Wuxi (1506–1521)

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  Central Park, New York City, US, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted.

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  The Djabugay language group's mythical being, Damarri, transformed into a mountain range, is seen lying on his back above the Barron River Gorge, looking upwards to the skies, within north-east Australia's wet tropical forested landscape

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  The Vale of Blackmore, the main setting for Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Hambledon Hill towards Stourton Tower

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  The Tetons and the Snake River (1942) photograph by Ansel Adams

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  Salomon van Ruisdael, "View of Deventer" (1657).

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  Thomas Cole "The Course of Empire The Arcadian or Pastoral State", US, 1836.

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  Laurent Guétal, Lac de l'Eychauda, France, 1886, Museum of Grenoble.

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  Landscape with scene from the Odyssey, Rome, c. 60-40 BC.

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  Raphael, Madonna in the Meadow (1505 - 1506).

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  Spring in Kiangnan (1547) by Wen Cheng-Ming(1470-1559) (lower half detail).

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  Claude Lorrain, Landscape with Apollo Guarding the Herds of Admetus and Mercury stealing them (1645).

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  Albert Bierstadt, The Matterhorn (circa 1867).

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  Vincent van Gogh, Wheat Fields at Auvers Under Clouded Sky (1890).

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  Pablo Picasso, 1908, Paysage aux deux figures (Landscape with Two Figures)

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  Paul Nash, Wire (1918).

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  Carl Brandt: "Åreskutan, landscape",1921 (Sweden)

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  Emily Carr, Odds and Ends, 1939 (British Columbia, Canada)

See also

In Spanish: Paisaje para niños