The Recreation of the Kachkar

Fans of intricate sculptures will be pleased to know that plans are now underway to create replicas of The Kachkar. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Kachkar, it is arguably one of the most intricate sculptures ever created. It was over 30 years in the making, and its origins lie in Armenia, where passionate and ambitious artist Hratch Karapetyan began work on a stone carving to memorialize his late father. He soon found that he had got lost in a plethora of ideas, each the more elaborate than the last. The piece he had envisioned grew into much more than initially imagined, and became the most ambitious sculpture ever created. He carved a sculpture that represented the pillars of Christianity: peace, strength, freedom, and infinity, overseen by the Virgin Mary, the mother of all Christians.

Karapetyan’s work left those who saw it in awe. A new project currently being financed via the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter aims to recreate his masterpiece. Sculptor Roy W. Butler will be creating a smaller, handmade reproduction of the Kachkar, which will then be copied. ‘There’s no way you can really experience it until you do see the piece in person, and we’re going to try and capture as much of it as we can in the reproduction,’ says Butler.

This campaign is intended to be a means of giving the sculpture to the masses. Whether the replicas will be as ornate at the original remains to be seen. Irrespective of whether or not this is the case, this is doubtlessly an ambitious project that should appeal to every art lover’s sense of challenge.