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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.
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