Les moulages en plâtre au XXIe siècle

Over the past thirty years, there has been a real resurgence of interest in plaster casts and collections of casts. A series of international symposia were devoted to the subject in France in the late 1980s and 1990s, followed by similar events in Italy, England, the United States, Poland, Germany and elsewhere. These events were often aim to undo the image casts forged in the early xx th century, namely mechanical copies made from a dull and cheap material, which were therefore neglected or withdrawn, or even destroyed; entire collections have thus disappeared. Today, all over the world, the interest in casts is being reassessed; carefully preserved and cataloged, the objects leave the reserves to be exhibited in museums; the museums and molding galleries are redeveloped, enlarged, sometimes installed in new premises. More and more, these pieces and the research devoted to them are emerging from the niches in which they were often confined. Castings of absent works are now (again) alongside “original” works made from more noble and more durable materials, and the so-called “original models” and working casts are exhibited alongside the completed works. More and more university researchers are approaching the subject from new angles, abandoning the traditional approach to the history of collections, submitting objects to new theoretical approaches. They now place them in new historical and material contexts. Once considered ridiculous or seen as cheap substitutes, they have become integral parts of the general history of art.