Stephen Petroff – Carlo’s Portraits

It is difficult for me to determine whether satisfaction can be measured in this world. Ecstasy and misery leave a strong impression in the memory, while pale satisfaction is as easy to forget as any minor disappointment.

There is a painting by Carlo Pittore, based on one of his postcards, I think. It’s called Many—Self-Portrait. Here we have Carlo in a carnival costume, sheltering himself from the rain with a dark blue umbrella—but mixed with the rain, like giant hailstones, heads of Carlo himself fall from the sky. There is a mold-made sameness to the storm of Carlo heads. Just as he created the Carlo character in daily life, and as he began slowly to experience the reactions of friends and neighbors and colleagues in the arts, he felt a sometimes harsh response, especially when he changed his name from “Charles” to “Carlo.”

Present yourself as he did, to be the upholder of a quasi-religious tradition (including many charming and aggravating codes of conduct) and the reaction must on some days, have seemed like a barrage of unpleasant weather. It is fortunate that he took pleasure from many of his adversaries.

I imagine that he developed most of his character traits in early childhood, so that by the time I met him in 1969, when he was twenty-seven and I was eighteen, he was largely self-created, probably several times, “reinvented” as we now hear said.

In the painting Many—Self-Portrait, he seems at once to be enjoying himself, yet also he seems to be making heavy weather of the rain of self-reflections. At a glance, his uniform seems to be a clown costume, but he is not a member of any circus. Despite seeming to lay claim to the Renaissance, he was, in most hours of most days, alone—a highly devout solitary, without co-religionists. Once, in his last years, he phoned me at 2:00 a.m. to say, with pain in his heart, “Today, I realized that I am the only person I know who loves painting!”

I bristled and thought I was going to say, “You called me at two in the morning to tell me that you don’t know anyone who loves painting?” Then suddenly I realized that it was silly for me to “advocate for” my own love of painting, when I could hear so clearly the pain in his voice. So, I said, “There are probably more than you realize. At any rate, we have the best friends in the world.” His voice became very much softer. He said, “We do, don’t we!” Sometimes I could talk him into a mood change. He seemed satisfied for the moment.

Opera—Self-Portrait

He appeared to be happy when he was “tooting his own horn” or “banging his own drum,” and I hope he was. Engaging with philosophical enemies invigorated him. When Carlo had chosen his forum, it was then that you heard the drums begin to beat. He was very good with the open letter, and the backstage telephone campaign. There are ten thousand ways by which artists may advance their interests, none of them sure-fire (perhaps I am being willfully naïve . . . ).  I think that the only way that Carlo could operate in the world of commerce—the world of red dust—without playing himself false, was to play himself unabashedly, to beat his drum, toot his horn—so that there could be no doubt about his motives. Still, it was possible to misread him.

When he came down with the cancer that killed him, I remembered that painting of the rain of heads and thought that dying might seem like a rain of heads, all of them with your own face, insulting and contradicting you, with your own mouth. But none of them are the true you, the one who had had life on earth. They were not even true adversaries. That’s why they could mirror your image.

Self-Portrait with Green Shirt (and) Self-Portrait with Red Shirt

Anyone who has heard Carlo Pittore’s later years lectures about the alchemical mixture of red and green being knowledge that any painter must master, can be forgiven for seeing the two paintings, though separated in their creation by years, as a sort of magical diptych. The Self-Portrait with Green Shirt appears to depict the painter holding paintbrushes, one in each hand.

One paintbrush is the one with which he paints (the right) while in his left hand, he holds a brush that has begun to sprout green leaves from the ferrule, a magical event similar to metamorphic occasions in mythological days. The painter’s green shirt amplifies the symbol of the flowering paintbrush. As Mircea Eliade says it: the artist reiterates creation.

The Self-Portrait with Red Shirt puts Carlo in the center of work drudgery. To paint the self-portrait, he stands before a large copy of Luca Signorelli’s Damned Souls. If I am correct, he actually painted his copy of the Signorelli in the 1970s, then spent twenty years re-drawing and re-painting it. Many times over the years, he would have the painting once again on his easel. “What will you learn in painting a copy, if you don’t draw it correctly in the first place? Well, the first thing you learn is that it takes you the rest of your life to do it right! You can’t get sloppy with these Italian Renaissance masters.”

Icarus

Mythology and the literature that attaches itself to those perfect stories were supplementary to nature and the human form, as Carlo’s sources for subject matter. Palinurus, Marsyas, and Icarus took the faces of friends and students. At the same time, even when technical concerns were high, the human stories of his models could mix with his literary themes, as he painted, he said, and this extended to his self-portraits.

Icarus falls from the sky in one self-portrait, and a feather attached to Carlo’s shoulder leaves no doubt that he saw himself as survivor Daedalus, who veered from the sun in his own flight. Human interaction with the divine (or more simply, with Fate) emotionally colors even paintings where the model chose the pose. His self-portraits often prefigured his work with the nude, as in the red shirt portrait, where he has the face shaded with the green that he often used for the shadows on human skin.

Self-Portrait for His Parents

The first painting by Carlo that I ever saw was a self-portrait oil on canvas, probably sixteen-by-twenty inches. He brought it to my apartment in Manhattan in 1969 to show me before he presented the picture to his mother and father in Queens. It was a gift symbolic of his mature commitment to the craft of painting. He had been painting and drawing since early childhood (with the ambition before he started attending school to become “a great artist”).

His gift of a self-portrait to his parents was symbolic recognition of their part in his pursuit of the way that had led him at age twenty-seven to this change in his life. He said that the painting was his first true self-portrait. I asked what that meant to him. He said that he had drawn many sketches of himself in the past, but that this was the first time he had looked at himself so closely, and so, it was a genuinely life-changing experience. He said that he had no clear idea of what sort of life he was “letting himself in for.” The self-portrait, with blacks and earth colors, brown and green, showed an attractive frown and searching, serious dark eyes, and—if I recall correctly—black horn-rimmed glasses.

When the strongest current of the day said, “Go against the current,” and the prevailing wind said, “One declares one’s self an artist,” taking instant possession of the profession, the artifice, the craft of painting, Carlo Pittore chose that moment, in the summer of 1969, to say, “As of now, I declare myself a Rank Beginner.”

He knew all that he had “picked up” in the past twenty-seven years, haphazardly, would not count for much, measured against all that he must learn in order to become an artist. He had already realized that he knew nothing and had everything to learn. He told me, “I know that I am not even an amateur.” He had come to New York City to ask his parents for help in going to art school in London. He brought them his self-portrait as a pledge of his sincerity. I was eighteen years old in 1969. His painting seemed to me to be presentable, but I have never seen it again.

If certain divine images here and there around the world are believed to be non-different from God, I’ve come to wonder if Carlo, in death, is non-different from the Carlo Pittore postcard collection.

The little Carlo cartoon character was created by drawing in ink over copyright-free 19th-century (and earlier) engravings. On the heads of clean-shaven men, he would draw his hat, his beard and mustache, and his eyeglasses. He created an emblematic eidolon of himself, sending it out to operate in the world of cardstock and ink. With the right press agent, this image of Carlo would be as recognizable as Mickey Mouse. Perhaps I exaggerate, but the Carlo Pittore graphic character is a warm-hearted figure of a man, and I’ll not be surprised to find the spitting image in Romanesque sculpture or Northern Renaissance engravings. But if the image has a history of appearing whenever he’s needed, Carlo has made a benign appropriation.

And since it is the nature of postcards to lie flat and say nothing, the two Carlos are near to non-different now. Spending time with the postcards or with the book, Adventures of Carlo Pittore is to keep company with Carlo himself.

Pictures Done at Bern Porter’s House

The expression of irritable skepticism in many of the self-portraits that Carlo did at Bern Porter’s house may well be the result of conditions at the Institute of Advanced Thinking. I believe I remember these items from conversations with Carlo. At Bern Porter’s institute, he slept in Porter’s barn, was not allowed to use Porter’s toilet (he used the wooded area behind the barn).

He did not eat with Bern, except for one time, when he knocked on Bern’s door one evening to ask some pressing procedural question. When Bern let him in, he saw that he had interrupted Bern as he prepared his supper. On the stove, Bern was boiling an onion—one onion, boiled in water. That is what Bern Porter was having for supper that night. When it had been boiled and was soft enough to cut in half, he did that, and shared his meal with Carlo.

Skeleton Self-Portrait

When I see a painting like Skeleton Self-Portrait, I wonder, first, about the artist’s state of mind. But then, I see in the painting elements that suggest that the painting may not be a simple statement about death, but may instead be an attempt at self-rejuvenation, if that word be not too corny. The head does not seem to be cut off, seems to be still alive and conscious (something is clearly going on in his mind. High in his ribcage there is displayed a piece of organ meat, his heart, I believe.

The head and the heart. And then there is the skeleton hand, holding a paintbrush. All this may simply represent the most basic symbolism, but I think he was indulging in something more: an attempt at magic (final resort of disappointed painters and poets. Carlo’s life was built around affirmation, but anyone can get the blues).

Then there are what appear to be (also skeletonic) black-green wings. Are they wings? Perhaps someone knows different. They seem to me to be remnants of wings (not large, angelic wings, but stingy, small, demonic wings. Is this a grant application to the Dark World (in the spirit of applying to organized crime for protection, when you can’t go to the police)? It is finally the humor of such a proposition that underscores his belief in Joy. Friends will recognize this reversion to comedy as one of his strategies for healing. His explosive laughter in the inevitable face of bad news . . .

Carlo’s Self-Portrait (with Martha Miller)

One of the finest “self-portraits” of Carlo Pittore was presented by Martha Miller at Carlo Gala Costume Ball on 4 August 2024, in Bowdoinham. Martha Miller seems to have transported Carlo, bodily, but also in spirit form from the world of gremlins and artists and tricksters back to Bowdoinham, all too briefly, where he writhed with otherworldly pleasure, and radiated the new knowledge that he had been gathering, convincing me at least, that the world to come is a world of laughter and benign “wickedness,” and who knows what he has been doing there, but I am glad he is there.

After several weeks of reflection, I think that the unexpected appearance of Carlo’s spirit at the UMVA costume ball was a peak experience of my long life.

I can’t thank Martha Miller adequately, for bringing Carlo back to us, through whatever solemnities and unfinished dimensions she had to travel. I miss Carlo more all the time. I am weeping with great sorrow and an equal measure of perfect joy as I write this line.

Satisfaction

When I heard that he was about to die, my brother Mark and I went out to Bowdoinham to see him for the last time. I’d been told that I could only stay for five minutes. But Carlo and I got to talking, and after ten minutes, I really had to say goodbye. Nothing went well for me, as I tried to speak, but he was fully himself, completely Carlo Pittore.

But, at the last, I found myself lying on his bed, crying as he held me in his arms—he reassuring me—and I, stupidly trying to tell him in half a minute all that his friendship had meant to me—unable to speak, horridly ashamed, doing and saying things that fools have always advised me that I should never say or do in that situation—yet he, in spite of his disease, his weakness, his complete lack of shelter from this last rain of insulting heads—was in command of his place in that moment, so that the next day, when he died, I thought that he had, when last seen, seemed fully satisfied to be, and to have been, Carlo Pittore.

Now Is Not the Time to Fail

I think I know how this painting was made. However, it may have happened another way. It may have been planned carefully from the start. Diagrams, measurements, written outlines. But I still think my first impression was correct.

He set about painting, as ever, in good faith, full of spirit, but unsure of his direction.

His belly was full of his usual concerns, but we will see, a new concern was on his mind. Perhaps he meant to paint a self-portrait all along. He had reason to direct attention upon himself. He roughed in a sketch for a self-portrait, and once it was recognizable, he moved to other parts of the canvas. I think that before he had painted his figure’s arms, he had begun to speak out loud to himself. Then it was, I think, that he began to write words on his canvas. Listing some of his concerns, he writes the word “Cancer.” He then fills the center of his canvas with words.

He had put words and letters in paintings before, particularly his large portrait of Bern Porter, but this was the first that I recall to contain a full sentence, a true statement, a message: “NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO FAIL.”

When I first saw this painting, I thought it must be unfinished, because it looked more like a sketch than any finished painting he had ever shown me. Now I believe that the picture was in fact finished, because it is a complete statement, in spite of its simple approach. In fact, I think it is perhaps his “greatest” painting, because it takes his work into an entirely new direction. I wish I had seen years’ worth of this sort of thing. I have often included words in paintings, even before I discovered William Blake’s prophetic books. Carlo, in addition to his words, has filled his painting with birds in flight.

Some weeks before I met Carlo, I found a black and white facsimile of The Book of Urizen which changed the direction of my thought. As with Many–Self Portrait (Carlo and the rain of heads) I wish I could have seen him pursue this way of working. I think that in this picture, Now Is Not the Time to Fail, Carlo Pittore entered the 21st century. I’m not saying that had he lived, Carlo Pittore would have taken a Blakean direction rather than continuing to revere the Italian Renaissance painters. I didn’t know enough about him.

Love and Money—Late Twentieth Century

At times, we held hands, he and I, when he wanted to speak about things that had hurt him.

One night, I gave him a ride into Portland. My warmth and his heat passed through our palms, and loosened the grip that strange hands had put upon his throat.

They were the critics and doorkeepers in our little art world. He felt that their hands had stayed him, and he shrugged them away from himself, reflexively. It was one of his oldest complaints.

Certain people, he said, had power they had not earned: they would not exhibit his paintings, they would not consider his grant applications, they did not renew his teaching position.

Their message to him was unmistakable.

I’d heard him say the same thing before, but, this time he surprised me, when he said, “All that I have ever asked from them was love, and at last, I understand that they are never going to give me love. And so, I’ve decided that they’re going to have to give me money. They have refused me their love, so now, I will take their money! They’ll have to give me money, because they wouldn’t give me love.”

“Love,” I thought. “He asked them for love?”

Then I said, aloud, “I don’t think you want to confuse the two things, love and money. It’s not easy to switch one for the other. Haven’t we always been told that we should keep them separated?”

But he said it again, his compulsive formula, and I contradicted him again.

He tried another argument, his indictment of bourgeois philistines.

I said, “When we were young, we sometimes pretended to be Lenin and Trotsky. When we called the Arts & Humanities functionaries, ‘capitalist blowflies and bourgeois cutworms,’ maybe they thought we were trying to insult them. Maybe we approached them from the wrong direction.”

“The problem went deeper than that,” he said.

His voice rose, “They never liked me, because I say ‘fuck!’ and I tell them that I’ll take their shit and use it for fertilizer! No! Money is all I will accept! Their love will no longer be sufficient!”

I wanted to say, “But they don’t have to give you either love or money . . . ” My new voice of reason sounded too much like my old sarcasm.

We still held hands. Aloud, I said, “We never talked with them much about shitting and fucking! Our subject matter was almost exclusively Love, brotherhood and sisterhood! Practically speaking, our middle name was Affirmation Experience. We tried to express an Ideal.”

I continued, “Their criticism of us was that we were only pretending to be artists and that we loved ourselves more than anything else. My regret is that they couldn’t see how much we loved each other.”

“Right!” he answered. “They never guessed what that was all about. They still don’t know the first thing about that!”

Then, he quieted down, considerably, probably thinking lonely thoughts.

He was not speaking directly to me when he said, at last, “It would not occur to them that a man like me was even capable of love.”

I steered the car with my left hand, and continued to hold his right hand in my own.

Dark outside! We rode, two charlatans squeezing our grubby paws together, holding hands the way that angels on a cloud will do.

 

Image at top: Carlo Pittore, Mail Art Postcard mass-produced print, 4 x 6 in., 1980s.