Earlier today I received, and burned, the last extant picture linking myself to the grassy knoll. As the envelope was engulfed in flame, I felt a twinge of regret that the Christmas postage stamp was incinerated, because it was appreciably artistic.

So, AskHistorians, can you please tell me where this revulsion comes from? Alternatively, whether it has historical analogues? I've heard that the Nazis burned books, and that Emperor Napoleon I destroyed paintings(?), so does it come from war propaganda? I'd wonder if it was a constant, if I wasn't aware of times when the destruction of art was normalized (e.g.: iconoclasm in the Byzantine Empire, the Cultural Revolution in China).

I understand that this is a question about current society, but I'm implicitly assuming that it has a suitably historical causal chain? If someone can show that we care about art because of developments in the 1990s, then I'll be chastened.