Sentence:  In order to be saved , plasticity had had to be isolated ; and as the aspect of the subject was transposed into those clusters of more or less interchangeable and contour obliterating facet-planes by which <WSD>plasticity</WSD> was isolated under the Cubist method , the subject itself became largely unrecognizable . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  the property of being physically malleable; the property of something that can be worked or hammered or shaped without breaking