Chagall and the cross in Kent

When Sarah Venetia D'Avigdor-Goldsmid drowned off the Sussex coast in 1963, aged 21, her parents, Sir Henry and Lady Rosemary, asked a famous Russian-French artist to create a stained-glass window in her memory for the local church. The artist was so affected by the experience that he added another window, and then another and another, until he reached the 12th and final window in 1985, the year of his death. And that's how All Saints' Church in Tudeley, a small village in Kent in south-east England, became the only church in the world to have all its windows designed by the great Marc Chagall.

The East Window shows Sarah drowning in the sea while the crucified Christ looks down. It is this dramatic scene that inspired the Mascalls Gallery in nearby Paddock Wood to put on a special exhibition this year called Cross Purposes. It brings together powerful images of the crucifixion from some of the most important artists of the 20th and 21st centuries: Tracey Emin, F. N. Souza, Maggi Hambling, Emmanuel Levy and Marc Chagall.

Christians looking at these paintings will be moved by the symbolism of the figure made to suffer so much, while those who do not believe in the Christ story will still find something in them, as they all emphasize the loneliness of a dying person's last moments.

If you are in London before the Cross Purposes exhibition ends on 29 May, it's just a 45-minute train trip from Charing Cross to Paddock Wood in Kent. From there, it's an even shorter journey to Tudeley.