GAUSAC - GLÈISA DE SANT MARTIN

The church of St. Martin of Gausac is one of the best examples of Aranese Gothic architecture, an artistic style rarely seen in the Val d’Aran. It is structured around a single nave to which side chapels have been incorporated, and ends in a polygonal apse. Despite the church’s unusual stylistic unity, there is evidence that it was built in stages, apparently beginning in the late 13th or early 14th centuries, and continuing until the flowering of the Gothic style in the 15th.
The church’s Romanesque heritage is evidenced by its baptismal font, a cylindrical basin with sculpted reliefs whose iconography connects it to the baptismal fonts in Casau and Escunhau. Another element from the Romanesque period is the recessed holy water font inside the church, close to the exit; decorated with plant motifs (stalks and leaves) it is reminiscent of other holy water fonts in Mont, Casau, Escunhau and Begos. The church’s architecture is based on semi-cylindrical columns that support the rib vaults that roof the building. The apse, adhering to the formal rules of the Gothic style, is polygonal. Finally, note the sculpture of Christ to be found embedded in the wall of the narthex, which could be the tympanum of the previous Romanesque church.
 

 

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