Snow-covered Bascule Bridge

Pierre Paulus was the leading illustrator of the industrial world of Wallonia. From 1906 he worked almost exclusively in the surroundings of Charleroi, where he depicted the mines, the factories and the canals with their heavy cargo boats. His style of painting is similar to that of such Brabant Fauvists as Rik Wouters and Auguste Oleffe, both of whom he knew from his childhood years. However, his palette is more sombre and heavy with melancholy. His industrial landscapes do not portray the triumph of industry populated with heroic workers but the depression of a grey world enveloped in clouds of smoke, whose power is fading and where poverty prevails.