景色
けしき · keshiki · JLPT N4 · noun
scenery
🏞️ 景色 = view (景) + colour (色): the colours of a view
景 means view or scene, 色 means colour, so scenery is literally the colours of a view. The reading is irregular: 景 is normally kei, but here it shortens to ke, giving ke-shiki. 色 keeps its shiki reading, as in 色彩 (shikisai).
景 — sun 日 on top + capital 京 below (phonetic)
景 is a semantic-phonetic compound: 日 (sun) gives the meaning and 京 (jīng, capital) supplies the sound. It originally meant 'sunlight' or 'bright', then extended to 'shadow cast by sunlight', and later broadened to 'scenery' or 'view'.
色 — person 人 (top) + kneeling figure 卩 (bottom)
Originally a pictograph showing one person above another, traditionally interpreted as depicting facial expressions or intimate posture between two people. The earliest meaning was 'facial expression' or 'countenance,' which extended to 'appearance' and eventually 'color' (the look of things). The 'shǎi' reading is a colloquial variant used for everyday color words.