In this Twilight: Tar Paintings in Conversation with American Transcendentalism by Christopher Volpe

Common Room, CSWR, 42 Francis Ave. Cambridge, MA
Tue., Oct. 13, 2026, 4 – 5 p.m.



Registration is required.
Please register to attend in person.

Please join us for the opening reception of Christopher Volpe's exhibition, In this Twilight: Tar Paintings in Conversation with American Transcendentalism.

Titled with a line from Whitman's Leaves of Grass, In this Twilight opens a space between longing for spiritual union with Nature and awareness of ecological decline. This body of work draws on the literature of American Transcendentalism to reflect on today's intertwined social and ecological crises not only as scientific or political challenges but also as the result of longstanding spiritual crises.
Each painting's title references the writings of Whitman, Emerson, Fuller, or Thoreau, while the imagery draws on the common flora and fauna of New England.

The primary medium is industrial coal tar, a byproduct of fossil fuel production. These paintings are made from one of the defining toxic byproducts of industrial civilization—the very material through which modern society has transformed the earth and our relationship to it.

Unlike polemical environmental art, In this Twilight avoids warning, advocacy, or direct critique. Instead, it leans toward wonder, tragedy, mortality, and the sacred. The ecological dimension, though crucial, remains embedded within a broader inquiry into impermanence, spiritual aspiration, and the unsettling condition of living at the edge of one historical era while another has yet to emerge.

The Transcendentalists were not simply poets, essayists, or naturalists. They explored consciousness in relationship with Nature, confronting uncertainties larger than themselves. In this Twilight likewise confronts uncertainty, not as a barrier but as a threshold, inviting reflection on what Transcendentalism can bring to bear on our changing world.

Christopher Volpe is a New Hampshire–based artist, writer, and educator whose paintings explore mortality, mysticism, and the environmental consequences of contemporary consumer culture. His work is held in numerous institutional collections, including those of the New Bedford Whaling Museum, the Whistler House Museum of Art, and Smith College. Volpe was the inaugural artist-in-residence at Harvard Divinity School and is represented by Georges Bergès Gallery in New York City.

Programming Series: Transcendentalism
Gazette Classification: Art/Design, Special Events
Sponsor: Center for the Study of World Religions
Contact: [email protected]
More info: cswr.hds.harvard.edu…