La barricade Manet, although close to the Impressionists, whose revolutionary impulses he shared, and normally counted as part of the group, in fact never participated with his paintings in their exhibitions, preferring to exhibit at the official shows organized by state associations, on the occasion of the great exhibition Salons and where his paintings appeared alongside the officially recognized masters at the time. For the first Impressionist exhibition he sent only a few etchings, which, moreover, had been made a few years earlier, thus without that Impressionist sense of feverish workmanship that would be the hallmark of Impressionist painting and give rise to its scandalous aspect that would later ensure its success. In 1871, the civil war or "Paris Commune" broke out in Paris, which saw the clash between citizens that styled themselves "Communards" and government troops. The civil war lasted for a year, from the summer of 1870 to the summer of 1871. On the battlefields and in the streets of the city, people fought and died. Manet was not insensitive to this tragedy and decided to depict it. An important oil painting entitled “La barricade” was born, along with a heliogravure on the same theme. Despite the fact that he was part of the bourgeoisie, Manet's sympathies were on the side of the partisans of the “Commune de Paris”.