Landscape is probably the most popular type of painting, but anyone who has ever been disappointed by vacation photographs knows how difficult it is to turn a view into a picture. This book shows how artists in past centuries translated outdoor space and light into paint, and how landscape imagery evolved from mere ornament into a visual metaphor of the human condition. The story is told from its beginnings in Roman mural decoration, through the Renaissance transformation of landscape into a vehicle for feelings and ideas, to the Impressionist revolution and beyond. The continuing relevance of art to how we see the world, and our place in it, is demonstrated through a practical discussion of optics of real and painted landscape, illustrated with works from the National Gallery, London.