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From the vast canonical quarters on the southern edge of Saint-Etienne cathedral, only a very few works dating between 1120 and 1140 are left. The surviving works escaped the destruction of the cloister and the chapter house at the beginning of the 19th Century. Among the remaining pieces are some capitals and eight bas-reliefs representing the college of the twelve apostles. Two bas-reliefs representing Saint Andrew and Saint Thomas, have been attributed to one of the major Romanesque sculptors of the time, Gilabertus, identifiable thanks to inscriptions which have now disappeared. The capital representing The death of John the Baptist has also been attributed to this artist.
The works attributed to Gilabertus show a definite maturity indicating a turning point in Romanesque sculpture. In an atmosphere of new religious sensibility, the apostles sculpted by Gilabertus display a new harmony of forms announcing fresh contacts with great statuary of the Antique and placing us in the van of a new sense of humanism that would later give rise to gothic art in all its splendour. Besides the very beautiful group of l'Annonciation des Cordeliers, providing yet more proof of the vivacity of Toulouse Romanesque art arriving at the end of its cycle towards 1200, there are a number of very varied works from the south-west, the most remarkable being the enigmatic Pilier de Narbonne. |