From indirect records we may presume that landscape painting was well understood in the days of ancient Greece, but there is no evidence that it then formed a separate branch of art. In Roman times according to Pliny, landscape was used for mural decoration. Of its character we can only judge from the examples exposed during the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum, which indicate that the pictures had but a topographical interest, or formed settings for the representation of industrial pursuits or classical adventures. Certainly there is no instance in Greek or Roman art recorded or exhibited, of any landscape as we understand it, that is, a work built up as a beautiful representation of nature, to be instantly recognized by the observer as a complete whole, as one sign in fact. The artists of the Italian Renaissance did not paint landscapes as separate pictures unless by way of study or experiment. They evidently considered landscape signs purely as accessories, and composed their natural views with special reference to figure designs. Some of them, particularly the leaders of the Venetian School, occasionally painted pictures in which landscape appears to play an important part, but in these cases the landscape is really subsidiary, though essential to the design; and the works cannot be compared in any way with those of Claude and others who often added figures to their landscapes in order to comply with the wishes of their patrons. The fifteenth century Flemish artists also dealt with landscape purely as background, and so with Martin Schongauer, Dürer, and other early German painters. But all the great painters down to the decline of the Renaissance, closely studied landscape, as is evidenced by the numerous sketches still existing, and the finished pictures remaining clearly indicate that by the middle of the sixteenth century artists had little or nothing to learn in landscape art, save the management of complex aerial perspective. Since landscape painting was introduced as a separate art towards the end of the sixteenth century, it has only commanded general attention when the higher art of the painter has appeared to decline. In Flanders the spurt in landscape due to Paul Bril was terminated with the last of the Breughels by the overpowering splendour of Rubens in historical work, and the attempts of even Rubens himself to create a greater interest in landscape signally failed. There were some good landscape painters in Holland during the flourishing period of the Dutch school, but it was only when Rembrandt, Dow, Terburg, and the rest of the bright constellation of figure painters had passed their zenith, or were resting in quiet graves, that landscape painting became in any way general. Then it was that Hobbema, Jacob Ruysdael, and their numerous followers, with coast painters like Van der Cappelle, and sea painters as William van de Velde, turned out the many fine works which are now so highly prized.