whereas the Greeks had depicted the human form according to pre-set rules of composition, visual harmony & balance, the Roman portrait used visual references to communicate specific political valuesД. The Veristic Male Portrait portrays the Ancient Roman. It is a marble head of Vespasian, the Roman Emperor who ruled from 69 C.E to 78 C.E., who was also the founder of the Flavian dynasty. The portraits of later emperor Augustus differ from the Veristic Male Portrait is the portrait of Augustus is influenced by Ancienct greek tradition. the veristic portrait emphasized visually the differences in values between conservative political values and newer approaches to portraiture being used by Imperial leadersД¬. The portraiture of Vespasian is a good example of a veristic style portraiture that conveyed a political message (fig. Rather it is a system of formalized conventional references whose specific content and polemical point are defined positively by the evocation of desired associations, and negatively by implied contrast with other images bearing an opposed content.'ДЄ. Although the surface of this piece has been strongly cleaned and even recut in places, evidence of a heavy dark incrustation, formed during centuries of burial, is. On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 162. 42 that: 'Such an image is not an indissoluble nexus of mutually referential properties conceived on the model of a natural organism and presenting itself as a self-contained and self-justifying totality, as had been the images of the Greeks. Marble bust of a man mid-1st century A.D. What is the author arguing about veristic Roman portraits when he states on pg.

Veristic portraiture