Absence of heart—as in public buildings—
Absence of mind—as in public speeches—
Absence of worth—as in goods intended for the public,

Are telltale signs that a chimera has just dined
On someone else; of him, poor foolish fellow,
Not a scrap is left, not even his name.

—W. H. Auden, in “The Chimeras”

Of the late, lamented Tate Gallery in London, it can be said that only a name is left, but now clipped of its definite article and divided into dubious duplicate, Tate Modern and Tate Britain—a reminder, if we need one, that two negatives cannot be expected to produce a positive result. Yet this ill-conceived project clearly represents the spirit of the age, which in art and in life is besotted with an appetite for destroying what is good by enlarging it to a scale of extinction. It puts us on notice that in the twenty-first century we shall need no wars to devastate our monuments to the past. Our cultural bureaucrats have shown themselves to be fully capable of performing the task for us.

At the outset of these melancholy reflections on Tate Modern, I must acknowledge that I put off visiting this bizarre creation—or should I say bazaar creation?—for a longer time than was, perhaps, appropriate for a professional critic of art and its institutions. Yet I had my reasons. The publicity campaign preceding the breakup of the old Tate Gallery into two new museums—Tate Britain, which is now to