The unknown masterpiece. Artists and writers in the studio

For at least 700 years the studio has been a place common to the work of writers, artists and intellectuals. The studio has provided a setting for change and opportunity, one that is private and often unknown. Saturated with intuition, discoveries and failures, it provides critical thought with the necessary space to renew the rules of art and culture. When exactly did intellectuals begin to search out the isolation and solitude required for their work? Was it always a common impulse or has it taken different forms over the course of the centuries? Examining the evolution and birth of this approach is like observing the habits and changes of modern thought from a privileged vantage point. A voyage through the parallel histories of art and literature, dismissing and confirming myths and superstitions, this is the story of how the studio emerged as a necessary instrument for artists to test out their thoughts and the reality around them, even today.