L'art pompier, literally "Fireman Art", is a derisive late-nineteenth-century French term for large "official"
academic art paintings of the time, especially historical or allegorical ones. It derives from the helmets with horse-hair tails, worn at the time by French firemen, which are similar to the
Greek-style helmets often worn in such works by allegorical personifications, classical warriors, or Napoleonic cavalry. It also suggests half-puns in French with
Pompéin ("from
Pompeii"), and
pompeux ("pompous"). Pompier art was seen by those who used the term as the epitome of the values of the
bourgeoisie, and as insincere and overblown.