The article is devoted to the history of landscape genre, which for a long time had been only a background for the main events related to human both in art and in literature. The author of the paper tries to reveal the parallels between the role of landscape in these areas from ancient times to modernity, referring to different literary works and papers of art critics and specialists in literature. She also shows how in 17–18 centuries an attitude to the concept of nature changed, and the consequences of this change.