FOR THOSE who love Renaissance painting it is always satisfying to see pictures by artists in their native towns. The choice on the Venetian terra firma is wide: Bassano with its unrivalled holding of early works by Jacopo da Ponte, who took his name from the town, in the Museo Civico; wall-protected Conegliano, with Cima’s great high altarpiece in the Duomo; Feltre, where the less familiar Morto da Feltre painted his masterpiece – a fresco of the Transfiguration – in the sacristy of the Ognissanti; Pordenone and its territory in which one can follow the early development of that towering figure, Giovanni Antonio de’Sacchis, il Pordenone; or indeed San Daniele del Friuli, where Pordenone’s most spirited Friulian contemporary, Pellegrino da San Daniele, worked in the church of Sant’ Antonio Abbate. Few names in the history of western art are more resonant than that of Giorgio da Castelfranco, whom we know as Giorgione. And so it is to his town, Castelfranco, that we go.
Castelfranco was founded in 1199 by the Trevisans, but despite the ostensible strength of their fortress it fell to the Paduans a mere sixteen years later. It was not until 1339 that the place was secured by Venice. When I first knew it, Castelfranco still seemed almost rural. But there has been much development on the fringe of the town. At its heart is the Castello, in reality a small fortified town, quadrangular in plan with a remarkably complete circuit of walls reinforced at regular intervals by towers and surrounded by a moat. In the centre is the piazza, with the elegant Settecento church dedicated to San Liberale. Here, in the chapel to the right of the presbytery, is the altarpiece of the Madonna and Child enthroned with Saints Liberal and Francis, which is one of the few pictures more or less unanimously recognized as being by Giorgione. Subtly asymmetrical paving draws us to the saints, the armoured Liberal with his lance, Francis moving his hands in mute communication, both below the level of the foot of the throne – the base of which is so high that the Virgin must have required help, human or divine, to mount it. At either side is a plausibly continuous landscape, suffused by a golden glow. For Giorgione was above everything a painter of mood.
The visitor is kept at some distance. We can absorb the painter’s message without sensing too closely the vicissitudes this masterpiece, for masterpiece it is, has undergone. For neither time nor the restorer has been considerate to the Castelfranco altarpiece. King George III’s early mentor, Lord Bute, was not altogether impressed in 1773; and, unable as we are to inspect Giorgione’s touch, we have, if we expect to begin the comprehend the picture, to respect the sense of silent, absolutely silent, contemplation that the painter so clearly intended to convey. When we have absorbed this, we begin to know why Giorgione had so profound an influence on his contemporaries.