# Apostle \(detail\) [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [UNKNOWN MASTER, French]() - Date: 1051-1100 - Technique: Marble ## Commentary The apostle's face with its protruding eyes, low forehead, firm nose and projecting lower jaw, under the cap of short, tightly curled hair, is not very far removed from Gallo-Roman stele images. Its formal simplicity is accentuated by the manner in which the head is reserved against the cut-away background, the face lacking any interior modelling but handled rather as a single rounded mass. Although it is in relief, the figure is without a true third dimension, which could have been obtained only by presenting a succession of planes modulating the forms in space, or by a greater naturalism. Psychological analysis and naturalism are sacrificed in favour of monumentality - an approach to the human figure indicating a primitive or archaic phase in art. ## Related artworks - [A Knight of the Golden Fleece]() - [A Miracle of St Benedict]() - [Adam]() - [Allegory of the Vanity of Earthly Things]() - [Altar frontal: Christ and Angels]() - [Annunciation]() - [Apostle]() - [Archangel Gabriel]() - [Book cover]() - [Book cover]() - [Bust of Cardinal Duprat]() - [Choir chapel screen]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()