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I've edited this quite a bit for the following reasons:

• I wanted to clarify the various reasons why an art work would be destroyed. Sand sculptures are probably closer to a form of intentional destruction than one of natural destruction - I'd save the latter for things like erosion, earthquake, flooding, and the like. I also wanted to differentiate between truly natural causes and accidental ones - a warehouse fire isn't an act of God any more than a plane crash like Swissair 111 is.

• "Controversial" isn't a cause, since even a natural or accidental cause can be controversial. There's an enormous amount of controversy, for example, over the Sphinx's erosion, but that doesn't mean it's intentional or criminal - basically environmentalists are getting worried about acid rain in Egypt. Swissair Flight 111's crash was controversial for reasons I won't get in here, but certainly that doesn't mean it wasn't an accident.

I took the four categories I used from death certificates. Natural, accidental, homicide (9/11, the Afghan statues, etc.), and suicide (Burning man, sand sculptures, etc.). It just makes sense. --68.144.40.224 22:24, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 5 October 2018 and 12 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: Dgoydan21, Alaila.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 14:45, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't there another type of damage to art, on the borderline between accidental and intentional, namely misguided or incompetent restoration?Bill (talk) 03:33, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The article has no cases in which someone legally bought the artwork and destroyed it intentionally. It should have. Mateussf (talk) 23:52, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a good idea, do you have any examples? Richard Nevell (talk) 00:07, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This article has no credible sources defining nor critiquing the cultural phenomena of “art destruction,” because this topic is discussed as “iconoclasm” in English discourse. This “art destruction” page is categorized with “Archaeological looting, Book burning, Iconoclasm, Lost artworks, Looted art, and Vandalism of art,” which all suggest that this article pertains to iconoclasm. Yet the page content discusses natural erosion, shipping incidents, Tibetan sand mandalas, Burning man, and lists iconoclastic WP:TRIVIA without any distinction. It’s hilariously completely incoherent and almost completely unsourced. Jellocube27 (talk) 18:32, 1 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not gonna lie, I felt personally threatened as an artist while revising this just now. The four separate links to ISIL pages, plus the repeated use of the phrase “art destruction” in every heading title, combined with only 5 citations… it’s pretty scary that people do not take art this seriously. Jellocube27 (talk) 19:31, 1 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]