单选题 Thanks to the protection of the tombs, so secure against the ravages of time if not against the hand of man, we possess a more complete sampling of Etruscan art in all its forms than we do of any other ancient European culture. Except for the frescoes of Pompeii and Herculaneum, the Etruscan frescoes supply the only insight we have into the techniques of painting in classical civilization. It is in southern Etruria, where the tombs were cut in the rock, that these frescoes are preserved. They are intact at least until the tomb is opened, whereupon deterioration begins. Fortunately it is now possible to remove the paintings from the walls and take them to the safety of the museum.
The Etruscan painter used pleasantly simple mineral colors that be laid on a fresh layer of plaster applied to the rock wall. With large, uninterrupted surfaces to work on, he was prompted to make complex pictorial compositions. But his purpose is always clear. Enclosed forever in the tomb, his pictures were to evoke for the deceased the joys of life. The dead man's occupation, which he intended to resume in the afterlife, is often depicted. Scenes of banquets and feasts are frequent. These guaranteed eternal satisfaction and pleasure to the departed; in the happy phrase of tile Belgian scholar Franz Cumont, "the ghost of a diner could be nourished by the appearance of food." The frescoes also perpetuated the pleasant hours of sports, games and dances. When Etruria came on difficult times, the funerary frescoes took on a more somber tone: the features of the departed, which were formerly peaceful, were expressions of anxiety and even of anguish.
Etruscan sculptors preferred to work in clay or bronze rather than in stone. They were particularly fond of the bas-relief, in which they produced delightfully animated figures framed in elegant arabesques. Their forte, however, was the portrait. The art of portraiture had deep funerary significance: it furnished a faithful image of the deceased to aid his survival in the other life. Frequently, in the seventh century B. C. , the portrait of the deceased formed the lid of the crematory urn. Portraiture reached its peak in the last centuries of Etruscan civilization, when the characteristic Etruscan flair for detail, for the unusual, found its fullest expression.

单选题 The title below that best expresses the main idea of this passage is ______.

单选题 The frescoes of Pompeii and Herculaneum are able to give us an insight into the techniques of painting in classical civilization because ______.

单选题 We may assume from this passage that ______.

单选题 One kind of subject matter not found in the frescoes in the Etrurian tombs is ______.