The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1920-10-01
Francis PauluS
Returns to Belgium
By LEN G. SHAW

When Francis P. Paulus, having sue
ceeded in gathering up most of his
art treasures that had been scattered
to the four winds when theeGe,mans
occupied Bruges, turned the key for
the last time in the house thai had
been his home during these happy
days preceding the world war. he babe
goodby forever to Belgium. The
country whose quaint people he had
perpetuated on canvas, whose wonder
full buildings and landscapes and bits
of river and wharf he had erected with
skill that gave him world fame, was
to know him no more. Battle-scarred,
filled with refugees who had lost their
all in the Titanic struggle, its ca
thedrals wrecked, it's mills silent, /;
was a picture of desolation and despair
that made no appeal to one in whom
there was the least touch of the artist.
That was more than a year ago
when Paulus, who fingered at the
outbreak of the war until discretion
became the better part of valor, and
then, with few unfinished can.
vases in roll under his arm and what
personal effects he could carry, hur
ried to England, went back after the
| signing of the armistice to ascertain
to what extent he had been sufferer
because practically all of his worldly
possessions were left behind. 1t was
with a sad heart that he took his last
survey of Bruges, and with increasing
sorrow that he made his way through
| the devastated areas of the one time
sunny France that he had known so
well, firm in the conviction that hence.
forth America and Detroit were good
enough for him.
But within month Mr.. Paulus viii!
be on the Atlantic on his way back to
Belgium, where he plans to take up
the work which was interrupted that
unforgettable day when the first OF
the enemy fordes clattered into Bru
ges. Mr.. Paulus, who was reared in
Detroit, and who has a warm place in
his heart for the city where much OF
his life had been spent, admits that
the hold Belgium took on him, the
fascination it exercises from an arts.
| tic standpoint cannot be shaken off
particularly when there is present.
day Detroit as an alternative.
"The noise, the clatter, the mad
rush here" said Mr.. Paulus, Struggling
his shoulders depreciatingly, in dis
cussing his change of plans.
81 came back to Detroit full of am
billions and ideas. I wanted to stay
here and work. That was why
brought my art treasures here and
had to auction them because l could
find no place to keep them without
paying a fortune for rent. But found
that could not concentrate. Always
there was the snort of motor, tn
smell Of gasoline, the clatter Of {
truck, the mad scramble of people
and little else The Detroit of ever
few years ago has gone-never tt
return.
There were some things should
have liked to do here. But they were
impossible Fancy man trying tt
etch Woodward avenue, with the bust
ness district at vista. Before he
had the firstdetail fixed in mind along
would come motor car-and if he
didn't step lively he'd get an entirely
different vista than he had figured on
"It is such contrast to Belgium
with it's qaint market places and its
picturesque people. Over there you
can plant your easel in the middle OF
street and nobody pay any atten
ton to you. Here, if you attempt u
make a sketch on pad of paper
everybody else stops working and
crowds around as if you we're freak
who had escaped from ZOO. 1t is all
so different, and besides
Then besides being that belgium has
laid hold on Mr.. Paulus, just as Paria
has on countless others, and he is go
ing back to his old love. He will prob
ably make his headquarters in Bruges
but he plans to preserve in etchings
the war ravages around Verdun and
the country to the south, including
some of the cathedrals that in thcir
ruined splendor stand as a silent tes'
timonial to the mast ruthless savageTg
civilization has ever known, and as a
constant rebuke to their desroilers
that the Detroit artist believes should
be perpetuated for all time to come.