Why did critics during the French Revolution criticize Antoine Watteau’s art?

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Watteau, Antoine: Mezzetin — Antoine Watteau *Mezzetin*, oil on canvas by Antoine Watteau, 1718–20; in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 55.2 × 43.2 cm.

During the French Revolution, critics and art students viewed the work of Antoine Watteau with hostility because his art was perceived as being too closely associated with the old monarchy and the aristocratic lifestyle of the past.12

As the revolutionary era shifted toward social protest and a new focus on reality, Watteau’s emphasis on fantasy and his delicate, evanescent style were rejected as symbols of a bygone, decadent age. Critics of the time explicitly accused him of having infected the dwellings of his era with bad taste. This disdain was so intense that, during the Revolution, art students even used his famous painting, Pilgrimage to Cythera, for target practice by throwing bread pellets at it.12