The painter of the large vase in this case deliberately used conventional imagery, an old-fashioned linear style, and the outdated black figure technique appropiate to the vessel's function as a prize in the Panathenaic games, one of the most important civic traditions of ancient Athens. In contrast, the nearly contemporary white ground lekythos (oil flask) deploys the trendier red-figure technique and offers a looser and more three-dimensional rendering of the human body. Despite such evidence of the rich variety of artistic styles and preferences of the Greek Classical period (480-323 BCE), art history persists in identifying an idealized naturalism often termed "classicism"--as the apex of Greek painting, and an exclusive throughline in Western art that represents its highest aesthetic achievement.