The barrier of Clichy

Horace Vernet painted The Barrier of Clichy in 1820, depicting the defense of Paris on March 30, 1814, when Marshal Moncey and the National Guard made a last stand at the Clichy gate against the Allied armies closing in on the capital. The painting was a politically charged subject under the Bourbon Restoration, celebrating French military resistance in a moment of national humiliation. Vernet's father, Carle, had actually fought at the barrier, giving the painting a personal dimension. The work was refused by the Salon jury in 1822 for its Bonapartist sympathies, prompting Vernet to organize a defiant private exhibition.

Vernet presents the urban combat with panoramic clarity, balancing the chaos of battle with the ordered composition expected of military painting. The smoke-filled atmosphere and the determined faces of the National Guard defenders are rendered with the gritty realism that distinguished Vernet's approach from the more idealized treatment of earlier battle painters.