A winter jaunt took us along the coast eastward from New Anzac and beyond Hastings and its tarred netsheds, whence we struck up inland gradually moving towards western Kent. Our goal, under a grey sky was to seek illumination through the work of Marc Chagall. Not the most obvious place to look, yet in a small village near Tonbridge, the church at Tudely has a complete set of Chagall stained glass windows. Made in memory of Sarah d'Avigdor-Goldsmid they are a remarkable sight and somehow flood the church with a brightness not always associated with that medium. Chagall, often cited as the most important Jewish artist of the twentieth century seemed to struggle with his faith and sought ways of reconciling Judaism and Christianity - hence these and other pieces. He was a thorough Modernist and a contemporary of Miro, Picasso and Modigliani. Throughout his long life he worked in most mediums producing pieces for august bodies like the U.N. It is therefore a real surprise to find these windows in such an out-of-the-way place - although Tudely appears to be in the middle of nowhere it is cheek by jowel with busy Tonbridge and readily accessible. We were led to this place by a friend, herself a stained glass artist and it's fair to say we were all moved at such work being so natural and approachable. Funny stuff, stained glass, and very difficult to 'get right' if you know what I mean. From a stylised sailing boat against a setting sun in the fanlight of a 'twenties' front door to work like this, stained glass moves in mysterious ways its responses to elicit.
7 comments:
That's a lovely photo. It is astonishing for such a small church to have such fabulous works. The thought does occur to me that in commissioning them for Tudeley, the d'Avigdor-Goldsmid family were obviously so much more interested in commemorating the loss of their daughter than in recording their own philanthropy - and I find that very moving.
Correct Affer, moving indeed.
Lovely, I must come and see it the next time I'm on a Harvey's Sussex Mission. One of my favourite pieces of stained glass is one I photographed last year in the chapel of Wellington College in Berkshire, a Southern Railway Schools Class loco under full steam.
Now that's what I call proper subject matter for stained glass Mr.A!
In the style of 'Allo 'Allo - I will say this only once...
Beautiful, window, so much more interesting than your average stained glass. Rather well captured on camera too, what with all that light behind and in front.
Welcome to the blog Hoop. Considering what a dark day it was the lighting's pretty good.
I love this place. The windows, and the story of the young woman they commemorate, are deeply moving. When I went there, about 15 years ago, it was a sunny day and the sky outside was as blue as the windows. Just to make it perfect, high above our heads someone was doing loop-the-loops in a biplane.
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