Audio Guide Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman

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		Studies for the Heads of Two Soldiers in the "Battle of Anghiari". Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci, 1452–Cloux, 1519). Charcoal, or soft black chalk; some traces of red chalk on left; 192 x 188 mm (7 9/16 x 7 7/16 in.). Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Budapest 1775. (Cat. no. 91).

Philippe de Montebello
These two faces in black chalk constitute one of Leonardo's most remarkable studies for his mural, The Battle of Anghiari. They were to appear at the center, as two horsemen struggling to capture the banner, or "standard" of Milan.

George Goldner
This drawing is remarkable for its ferocity of expression. Leonardo in all of his studies of nature and natural experience takes natural reality, natural expression, and intensifies it, gives it a kind of grandeur. Leonardo famously was concerned with the motions of the mind: the psychology of a person, in our terms. The way one thought, the way one felt, not simply the way one's outer morphology appears to another set of eyes. And this drawing exemplifies that in terms of its wonderful and violent expressive character, which captures not just the form of the figures, the way light plays on their faces, details of facial appearance, but also more importantly captures the way they felt at this dramatic moment in the midst of battle.

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