paisaje

Paisaje is a Spanish noun with several related meanings. In geography, it denotes the visible features of a portion of the earth, including landforms, bodies of water, vegetation, and the built environment. In the arts, paisajes are portrayals of natural or urban scenery, and in literature they can function as the setting and mood of a narrative.

The term comes from the French word paysage, itself from pays "country" with the suffix -age, borrowed into Spanish in the early modern period. The concept in both language and scholarship overlaps with the English "landscape." The word now covers both the physical scene and its representation across disciplines.

Types include natural landscapes, which depict nature; urban landscapes, which portray cities and human settlements; seascapes, which focus on oceans and coastlines; and cultural landscapes, areas whose character results from long-standing cultural and agricultural activity. In geography, the concept of landscape also encompasses processes such as erosion, land use, and climate change as they shape recognizable scenes.

Art history treats landscape as a distinct genre that emerged in Europe in the 17th century, with Dutch and Italian painters standardizing naturalistic representation; later artists such as Claude Lorrain, Nicolas Poussin, and J. M. W. Turner expanded its emphasis on mood and light. In Spain, landscape painting rose in the 18th–19th centuries, culminating in works that integrate nature with national and regional identity.

Contemporary usage extends to fields such as landscape architecture, urban planning, and environmental studies. Paisaje remains a central term in cultural discourse about identity, conservation, tourism, and the relationship between people and their surroundings.