ARTIST'S WORKSHOP. – The generic term bottega (from the Greek ἀποθήκη, “storeroom, warehouse”) denotes an environment in which objects of every kind are stored and sold, but it also serves to define the set of spaces in which artists and craftsmen produce their works. It is to this specific meaning of a workshop that the more particular phrase bottega d’arte refers.
From the Middle Ages onward, around the figure of the master, pupils, followers, journeymen, and apprentices gathered in circles from which emerged the great figures of artists who later perpetuated the tradition on their own. Within the context of the artist’s workshop, the activity of those craftsmen who assisted the master in executing the most common tasks also took on a distinctive character in the Middle Ages. This intense collaboration enabled well-regarded workshops to produce a vast output capable of meeting the numerous requests of patrons. Even such eminent artists as Giotto, Masaccio, Paolo Uccello, Pollaiolo, Ghirlandaio, Donatello, Della Robbia, Raphael, Titian, and Tintoretto had highly productive workshops and were surrounded by a large number of collaborators.
Later, in the 17th and 18th centuries, this custom declined and left few traces; however, it is worth recalling the very active workshops of artists and craftsmen, the latter of which became particularly prominent from the 18th century onward for the production of church furnishings and decorative objects for private spaces. Notable among these were the workshops of Venetian craftsmanship for the creation of furniture, carved glass, worked bronzes, and lace, as well as the Neapolitan workshops for the production of nativity figurines (v.), maiolica (v.) and porcelain (v.) scattered throughout Italy, France, and Germany.
In recent times, the decline of the artist’s workshop has deepened for various reasons, all of which can be traced to the transformation of social life following the rapid and total rise of industry and commerce. The past century saw notable examples of groups of artists gathered in “studios,” often the setting for literary disputes and important polemics in the history of the figurative arts, rather than collective workshops.
Nor were there favorable conditions for the survival of the artist’s workshop; it persisted only in certain centers where it still exists today, such as in the Alto Adige region, particularly in the Val Gardena, where the wood-carving industry has been a living heritage of those people since the 16th century. Confined within the domestic circle rather than the heterogeneous environment of the true artist’s workshop, it specialized in religious statues and high-reliefs, ecclesiastical furnishings, and small and refined images, and in some “workshops” it assumed a notable artistic character.
The modern concept of the artist’s workshop has since completely changed and today it has come to signify more specifically a place for the commerce and display of objects in the antiquarian market. Only in a few major European cities—Paris, Rome, Florence, and Venice—do some artist’s workshops remain with purposes similar to those of the past.