# Altar frontal: Christ and Angels [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [UNKNOWN MASTER, French]() - Date: 1051-1100 - Technique: Stone ## Commentary Bernard Gilduin was responsible for the sculptures of the altar of Urban II, consecrated in 1096. The central area of the shrine displays a mandorla with Christ in Majesty, borne up by two symmetrical figures of angels. It is treated in the same way as the funerary portraits on Gallo-Roman sarcophagi, or the portraits on oriental ivories. This vision of Christ as a detached and powerful god was to prevail throughout Romanesque art. In form it is a transposition into sculpture of the gold altar frontals laid over wooden cores. The linear treatment of the elliptical folds of drapery, rather than the hesitant modelling, gives the indications of the figure's anatomy. ## Related artworks - [A Knight of the Golden Fleece]() - [A Miracle of St Benedict]() - [Adam]() - [Allegory of the Vanity of Earthly Things]() - [Annunciation]() - [Apostle \(detail\)]() - [Apostle]() - [Archangel Gabriel]() - [Book cover]() - [Book cover]() - [Bust of Cardinal Duprat]() - [Choir chapel screen]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()