Rotarians have always enjoyed the fun and fellowship that is part and parcel of being a Rotarian and part of the fun is going to places that you might not otherwise have come across.
Faversham Rotary is no exception and the Club’s most recent visit had a cultural flavour – the Chagall Windows at Tudeley church. It was a most interesting and enlightening visit - made all the better by John Blackford, one of our club members who acted as our guide. He has an amazing way of bringing the artist Marc Chagall and Tudeley Church to life with his interesting anecdotes and history.
Here are a few of John’s notes about the beautiful windows.
“In July several of us went to Tudeley church to see the Chagall windows, after enjoying a convivial pub lunch on the way. We were fortunate that it was a bright day and the sunlight dramatically lit up the colours in the glass, progressing from deep blue in the north wall windows to gold on the south.
The main window is a memorial to a local young woman who drowned in a yachting accident. As her father was Jewish and her mother Christian they commissioned Marc Chagall, the great Jewish artist of the 20th century, to make a memorial window in her mother’s church.
When he came to its installation Chagall saw that there were 11 other windows, all in clear glass. ‘I will do them all,’ he said, with the result that Tudeley is the only church in the world to have all its windows made by Chagall. They vividly show the changing of darkness into light, which is a universal image with meaning for everyone.”