Late Roman Attic helmets

[M. Demetrius]

@Diocle: There is also, besides the style issue, the possibility that the marble head's sculptor was just a better craftsman than the second sculpture. The proportions and details are clearly in favor of the more objective (as opposed to subjective) marble bust.

If I tried to add something to that group, myself being not very artistic and totally untrained, I'd produce a poor-quality sculpture, but it wouldn't be because I didn't try to make a Michelangelo style--just that I simply was unable to produce that level of artistic piece. It wouldn't have anything to do with my trying to change the viewer's opinion of the subject.

Consider an Aphrodite sculpture from classical Greece with a Neolithic pottery fertility goddess artifact. Both artist had the idea to make a solid representation of the goddess, but one is considered great art, and the other not so much. But in their particular environment, both would have had similar effect to those viewing the art.