READING GROUP DISCUSSIONS - THIS WEEK MARC CHAGALL

Although we are a 'reading group', contents and topics are invariably discussed on Book Club at Phoenix 98fm. Today, a member brought up the topic of the Russian-born artist Marc Chagall's modern stained glass windows. I remembered this unusually striking  artwork which is a wonderful memorial window set in the east window of All Saints church at Tudeley, a tiny village in Kent. Simon Jenkins, the expert on British monuments, in his great book ENGLAND'S THOUSAND BEST CHURCHES, gave this building a fascinating critique. The last time I visited Tudeley (a place I knew well from childhood) was on a dull day, but the windows in the south wall of the nave are wonderful, giving the visitor a treat in which the artist used his blue and yellow shades within his beautiful glass work. The work was commissioned by the parents of a daughter who was drowned in a sailing accident in 1963. When the first window was installed in the church in 1967, it was so admired that more windows  for the entire church were commissioned. Seven arrived in 1974 and the final four in 1985, the year of Chagall's death.