It is often assumed that reading about the lives of artists enhances our understanding of their work - and that their work will reveal to us something about them - but the relationship between biography and art is rarely that simple. "The Life and the Work" brings together a collection of provocative essays, by a number of respected art historians that attempt to address this fundamental relationship by looking at the life and works of such artists as Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan, Van Gogh, Cezanne, and Leonardo da Vinci.