This article compares how lower secondary schools in Italy and China teach pupils to represent the natural environment in the art curriculum. The author situates the two systems within their intellectual traditions, Confucian and Daoist thought in China and, in Europe, a line running from ancient philosophy to modern pedagogues such as Rousseau, Fröbel, Pestalozzi and Montessori, and outlines the reforms that shaped art education in each country, from Munari in Italy to Cai Yuanpei in China. Differences appear already in terminology: the Italian curriculum speaks of “landscape”, while the Chinese one centres on shanshui painting. Comparing the Italian textbooks Il Sogno di Artemisia and In Arte with the Chinese Mei Shu volume, the article shows that Italian teaching proceeds from the particular to the general, through analysis, geometric composition, perspective and colour theory, and treats landscape within art history. Chinese teaching proceeds from the general to the particular, emphasising direct experience and internalisation, codified brush techniques for trees, rocks and leaves, and the appreciation of classical works and poetry under the theme of “poetic feeling and pictorial meaning”. The author concludes that one approach rests on scientific objectivity, the other on emotional sensibility.