I could see this being true for paintings, and especially if your primary interest is the meta.

For anything experiential, a virtual environment makes a kind of sense to me. Is it stained glass or sculpture or armor or a painting? How big is it? Does perspective or lighting matter at all? Do I care if the artist died of dysentery? Is the place the art?

Depending on those, I think I can understand. Otherwise, sure, a picture or panning widget and some wiki text is fine.

But also I’m just some goof on the internet and not an expert on anything.