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		Studies of the Human Skull (recto). Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci, 1452–Cloux, 1519). Pen and dark brown ink over traces of leadpoint; 189 x 139 mm (7 7/16 x 5 1/2 in.). Lent by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Royal Library, Windsor Castle 19058. (Cat. no. 58).

Martin Kemp
Now for an artist, it might seem obvious that it's useful to know what the skull is like, because you'll be able to portray the head better, you'll understand the underlying features. But Leonardo does much more than that. He is extraordinarily interested in other things as well, first of all, proportion. He is interested in the "axis" of the skull, as he calls it; that's to say, if you draw a horizontal through the skull and a vertical through the skull, where they intersect. And this point, interestingly, this key point at the geometrical center of the skull, he identifies as what in Italian is called the senso commune, that is the common sense—which doesn't quite mean what we mean by commonsense, it means the point at which all the sensory information from the five senses is put together so it can be compared. And if you look at that very point, you can see on the drawing where he is just tracing some of the nerves that come in through this absolutely key, central sorting house. This for him was of interest both in itself, as it told us something about how the brain worked; but it was also interesting because, he said, "The artist is concerned with the workings of the mind." Unless the artist understands the working of the mind, the artist cannot understand how the hands, the face, the whole body responds to what the mind is thinking.