The political landscape uses a visual image inherited through painting.
Middle Dutch landscap named a region. Dutch painting usage supplied English landscape for a scenic picture. English also developed scenery uses and can now call a field of activity a landscape.
The physical-scenery sense is explained but omitted from the matching slots. The English painting sense already had a Dutch model.
Sources
- Etymonline: landscape
The entry gives Middle Dutch landscap, region, Dutch painting usage and the early English scenic-picture sense.
- Merriam-Webster: landscape
The entry confirms the Dutch formation and defines the modern figurative noun as an area of activity.