The foreword by Fred Ross, Chairman of the Art Renewal Center, explains, "The atelier approach to art education has its roots in the guilds of the early Renaissance. For more than five hundred years, master artists transmitted a system of knowledge to their students," in ateliers or workrooms in countries throughout the world. They taught the classical methods, and now there is a new Renaissance in these classic subjects which require techniques known by the masters. Enter again the word "atelier."

So the artwork in this book comes from the studio, is about the studio. "Studio" in the broad sense of the word. Some of the plates are replications of copy paintings of great masters like Rembrandt van Rijn and so are recognizable. Others seem wholly original. I sense that an artist working in other media will want to try his or her hand at these ancient techniques. The old has become new again.

Those of us who aren't artists are in this for the visual ride. Wait until you see author / artist Aristides’ oil on canvas on the back cover. It is of a vase of tulips the color of salmon sunsets. The light reflecting from the base feels whole, the solid, perhaps marble slab it sits on sturdy, and the blooms on fragile stems reach up, up for the sky. That one image alone is worth the price of the book.