Which statements about sculpture from the roman empire are true?
choose all answers that are correct.
a.
they show the influence of greek sculpture.
b.
they are realistic in style.
c.
they were carved using rigid formulas.
d.
they show the individual features of a person.

A.  They show the influence of Greek sculpture.

B.  They are realistic in style.

D.  They show the individual features of a person

Explanation:

A.- The sculpture of Rome developed throughout the eastern part of the Roman-influenced country, with its central focus in Rome between the 6th and 5th centuries AD. The origin derived from Greek sculpture, mainly through the heritage of Etruscan sculpture, and then directly, by contact with the colonies of Magna Grecia and Greece itself, during the Hellenistic period.

B, D.- From the time of the Republic the portrait was very well valued and with time it oscillated cyclically between an idealizing classicist tendency and another one of great realism, derived in part from the typical expressiveness of Hellenistic art. And among the portraits, the bust and the head were the most frequent forms. Whole body portraits were less common, though not rare.

The preference for the bust and the head is a typical Roman cultural trait that created a huge market throughout the Mediterranean basin, and is explained first, for economic reasons, being much cheaper than a complete statue, but also by the conviction of a better individual identification that prevailed among them, except in the case of the statuary when it represented the portraits of the emperor in a deified state, especially in periods when the realistic description was in force with more force, an incongruence is immediately observed between the form of representation of the body and the head.

While the head was often shown with all the signs of aging, the bodies were represented according to the ancient canons of classical Greek sculpture, idealized with eternal youth and strength. These strange works, to modern eyes, accustomed to enjoying a statue as a homogeneous whole, are understandable when we remember the conventions that governed the art of ancient portraiture, and when we know that the statues were for the Romans a kind of symbolic simulacrum and not a reality.