Fragility: A History of Plaster

The distant past is commonly characterized in terms of dominant materials of the time – the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, etc. Since the dawn of writing, however, characterizing eras in terms of materials has fallen by the wayside, and yet materials have continued to exert a powerful influence on our collective imagination.

Viewed from this perspective, France in the period from 1815 to 1855 could be seen as the half-century of plaster. After the French Revolution, plaster was use...