Short answers, pulled from the story.
The earliest pure landscapes with no human figures emerged around 1500 BCE in the Minoan civilization. This artwork is specifically the Spring Fresco found at Akrotiri and is now housed in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.
Joachim Patinir, a Flemish painter active between 1480 and 1524, pioneered the world landscape style. His masterpiece Landscape with Charon Crossing the Styx was created between 1515 and 1524 and exemplifies this new genre.
The shan shui or mountain-water tradition reached its zenith during the Song dynasty. This style originated in the Tang dynasty and used monochrome ink on silk or paper to create landscapes that were rarely intended to represent actual locations.
The Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century witnessed a dramatic growth in landscape painting driven by the virtual disappearance of religious art in Calvinist society. Artists like Jacob van Ruisdael developed extremely subtle realist techniques for depicting light and weather.
German painter Caspar David Friedrich created his famous work Wanderer above the Sea of Fog in 1818. This piece exemplifies the Romantic movement where remote and wild landscapes became prominent sources of spiritual and emotional expression.
By the early 19th century English artists with the highest modern reputations were mostly dedicated landscape painters including John Constable, J.M.W. Turner, and Samuel Palmer. These artists laid the groundwork for the modern appreciation of natural beauty despite contemporary struggles to establish themselves in a market that still preferred history paintings and portraits.