Art joins the Wikiverse

Some modern art may resemble cut-and-paste work, but it is quite something when art galleries adopt the practice, too. The Tate has been criticised by the historian Bendor Grosvenor for using text from the online encyclopedia Wikipedia for the artist biographies on its website. Thus we learn that Sir Anthony van Dyck is famous for the Van Dyck beard. The entry for Sir Peter Lely is sadly not long enough to mention the horse named after him at the 1996 Grand National. Dr Grosvenor’s other concern is Wikipedia’s accuracy. Helpfully, the encyclopedia has a page on that. Since its readers are free to edit entries themselves, some have taken to adding scurrilous details about figures they dislike. Art is full of rivalries. Have Romanticist ultras vandalised the pages of the neo-classicists? Perhaps the Tate had better check.