Sculpture and Feathers

I hate it when people don't know how to model feathers.

Take this example, by a sculptor who shall go unnamed, but is known as "the Sculptor of Eagles".

Each and every feather is rendered as if it were a number being audited by the IRS. Every one accounted for in painstaking, painful detail.

The result is leaden. His marketing prose may soar, but the sculpture doesn't.



Here's another eagle by another sculptor. Same problem.



At issue is what one know's vs what one sees. That birds are covered in feathers is true, but when you can't see the bird for the feathers, something is very wrong.