““Inspired by the works of Homer—and armed with a vase decoration technique that allowed the clay’s natural color to shine through to represent the tanned bodies of gods and warriors in more realistic colors—Euphronios and his cohorts established history’s earliest known “school” of art. They worked together in a part of Athens called the Kerameikos—a name taken from the word keramos, or clay, from which our “ceramic” is derived. Euphronios and his coterie of painters are known today as the Pioneers for the mark they made by popularizing the red-figure style.””