A Poetic New Year

This could only be by one person - Marc Chagall. What a treat to call in at a small Church in Tudeley, near Tonbridge, on the way back from a New Year's visit to family and friends, and to be greeted by an entire scheme of twelve gorgeous stained glass windows, full of the distinctive feeling and symbolism of Chagall, including angels (above) and asses (below).

The painting is loose and free and if you look closely - which you can, as most of the windows are at eye level - you can see all sorts of marks and scratchings made by Chagall even after they were installed.

The work began with a commission for this large East Window above the altar, to commemorate an aristocratic and art-loving young woman who died aged 21 in a sailing accident. The story is that when Chagall came to see the window installed in 1967 he said' 'It's magnificent. I will do them all!'
He collaborated with the stained glass artist Charles Marq of the Jacques Simon workshop in Reims, and theirs seems to have been as close a working partnership as John Piper and Patrick Reyntiens. Chagall only began working in stained glass in his seventies and he was still working in glass in the year of his death at the age of 98. That's what I call a long and creative life. A positive way to start 2019.

The Chagall Windows at Tudeley