# The Four Rivers of Paradise [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [MEDIEVAL SCULPTOR, French]() - Date: 1101-1150 - Technique: Stone ## Commentary The picture shows a capital from the Abbey of Saint Pierre, Cluny. The sculpture from the abbey at Cluny has provided art historians with one of their thorniest problems in chronology: for the orthodox French school the capitals date from 1120-1140; for the American school and for some French historians, they were carved before being put into place - that is, before 1095. According to the American thesis it was the Cluniac masterpieces that inaugurated the Romanesque revival of monumental sculpture, a revival whose beginnings have traditionally been ascribed to Languedoc. In either case this capital remains a beautiful piece, with sinuous, boldly formed foliage swollen with sap, and, an allegorical male nude representing a river at each corner. On each face of the capital the composition is finely balanced, and the decorative elements are raised in true relief modelling. ## Related artworks - [Ambulatory capital]() - [Ambulatory capital]() - [Annunciation]() - [Apocalypse]() - [Apostles James the Great and Paul]() - [Apostles James the Great and Paul]() - [Apostles John and Peter]() - [Apostles]() - [Ascension]() - [Bearded Man's Head]() - [Capital from Nazareth]() - [Capital of a column]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()