Art museums are even worse. "Portrait of Duke von Duke (London, 1841). Oils."

Who is this guy in the painting?! How did he merit a painting? What's unique about the style/composition/whatever?

Conversely, I went to an exhibit of Napoleonic Art and they had a whole breakdown of the symbolism. For example, Napolean liked bees as a symbol of hard work and order, apparently, and they were snuck into most depictions of him as little Easter Eggs.

Part of the reason for this is that the world has become deeply multi-cultural and self-aware and, as such, people in the art field—the people who educated the people who are now in power—realized it has become incredibly difficult to write about artwork without smuggling in an agenda that contradicts other perspectives in problematic ways. In the 60s and 70s, artists realized this and initiated a new program for art that privileged the viewer's direct experience in the moment, and totally de-emphasized any outside interpretation. We're still, more or less, living in the wake of those events, since that's basically the last thing that happened in the art historical narrative, and art museums are run by art historians.

To illustrate: when I studied art in the 2010s, the absolute worst thing you could say about an artwork or exhibition was that it was "didactic."

I have a hobby of photographing scientifically incorrect explanations on placards at science museums. Usually found in smaller towns.