Sansui (山水) idealizing nature

In Japanese, san (山) means a mountain and sui (水) means water, combined these two words emerges, sansui (山水) originally referred only to nature or natural landscape, at least until the twelfth century.

Around the 14th century in the Muromachi period, the type of landscape paintings were called sansui-ga, initiated by Japanese painters who traveled from China to Japan.

This type of painting and Japanese engravings were much appreciated by the newly resurgent samurai class, since they represented an idealized nature much to the taste of the time.

The term sansui-ga currently applies to Chinese, Korean and Japanese painting, in ancient Japanese engravings we can contemplate idealized images that mainly use the forms of mountains, rivers, clouds and natural elements such as rocks and trees.