One other example. Do a Google search on "fred holland day youth lyre." Heaven knows where he got the lyre! Lyres were not popular musical instruments in the United States in 1907! But he thought that fine-art photographs should show people in ancient Greek dress playing lyres.

For synonyms: "They patterned their work on classical paintings." "They used classical paintings as their model." "They based their style on classical paintings." You can also say, expressing a negative judgement: "They imitated the classical style." "They aped classical paintings."

A "model" can mean "a pattern to follow." "They modeled their work on classical paintings" means "they used classical paintings as a model." Even when they were not exactly _copying_ them, they followed the same style. For example, the photographer Eadward Muybridge was a pioneer in action studies--not quite cinematography, because he devised systems that shot images in quick succession but never put them together to create a moving picture. Anyway, in many of his studies women are picking up Grecian urns, even though of course British women didn't use urns like that in the 1880s. But in that era art = ancient Grecian art. Do a web search on "eadward muybridge woman lifting an urn" for an example

It means that they used classical paintings as examples to copy from. You could say that members of the Aesthetic Movement based their work on classical paintings.