Exotic lairs, freezing garrets or convivial salons, artists’ studios reflect their occupants’ personalities, work methods, dreams and obsessions. Some are battlegrounds where hopes are dashed and concepts fail dismally, some are lavishly furnished with exotic objects to flaunt celebrity artists’ success, while others are shrouded in an opium haze in squalid Montmartre tenements. Spanning 500 years of western art history and with splendid images, the book describes the skilful techniques employed in a Renaissance workshop, Michelangelo’s agony and ecstasy while painting the Sistine Chapel, the murky world of the artist’s model, how Rodin worked in his plaster-spattered environment and the Paris ateliers of the Impressionists.