Théodore Hannon

Born October 1, 1851, at Ixelles, Belgium, and died April 7, 1916, at Etterbeek, Belgium, Théodore was the second of three siblings. His father, Joseph-Désiré Hannon (1822-1870), was a doctor of medicine and a professor of natural sciences (botany, zoology) at the Free University of Brussels. His brother, Édouard Hannon (1853-1931), was an engineer by profession and a pioneer of Belgian artistic photography. His sister, Mariette Rousseau (1850-1926), née Marie-Sophie Hannon, was a respected mycologist.[3]

Hammond first followed in the footsteps of his deceased father, by enrolling in a study of the sciences (1870-1871) and then medicine (1871-1873) at the Free University of Brussels. But before he graduated, he pivoted away from medicine toward the fine arts. He re-enrolled at the Académie royale des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles (Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels), and took Camille van Camp as his master. He became a member of the Société Libre des Beaux-Arts and then in 1875, together with several other artists including Alfred Verhaeren, Louis Artan, Félicien Rops and Périclès Pantazis, became a founding member of a new, anti-conformist group: La Chrysalide.[1] At this same time, he rejoined the International Society of Watercolorists, founded by Rops in 1869.

At the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, he became friends with the young James Ensor and, around 1880, introduced him to his sister and her husband, Ernest Rousseau, who went on to introduce Ensor into the artistic and intellectual circles of the capital at that time.

While he was working in the fine arts, Hannon also devoted himself to poetry. Writing under the pseudonym of "Red, Yellow, Black", he submitted some verse to the Students Journal (Journal des Etudiants), launched October 22 1874, which was "totally impregnated with ideas from the University of Belgium." Approached by Victor Reding, the spokesman for a modernist group that had manifested itself at the center of a literary circle on rue de Namur, he became associated with the launch of a weekly literary magazine, The Artist, that had "youthful tendencies" and whose first number appeared November 28 1875. In August 1876, he published his first book, Les vingt-quatre coups de sonnet, a collection of poetry published by Félix Callewaert, who also printed The Artist. The book of poetry was embellished by an amusing frontispiece (mistakenly attributed to Rops). It was the work of a debutant, but worthy of notice because of its curious amalgam of realistic audacities and Parnassian exigencies. He fluctuated between being a painter and a poet, without concealing which of the two he preferred.[1]

Despite his greater interest in the fine arts, literature would take a more important role in his activities and preoccupations. His relationship (mostly if not exclusively epistolary) with the French author Joris-Karl Huysmans seems to have contributed to this. In August, 1876 Huysmans, whose only known work at the time, Le Drageoir à épices (later changed to "aux épices"), had passed practically unnoticed, arrived in Brussels to supervise the publication of Martha, his second novel, which he didn't dare publish in his own country for fear of legal proceedings. He addressed himself to, and confided his manuscript into the hands of, Félix Callewaert. Martha was published by the Brussels publisher (under the name of Jean Gay) in Belgium on September 12, 1876, not too long after Hannon's first book of poetry, Les vingt-quatre coups de sonnet had appeared.

In the November 26, 1876, issue of The Artist, Hannon dedicated an article of high praise to Martha, which Huysmans thanked him for in a long letter dated December 16, 1876. It was the beginning of an exchange of letters that continued for several years, the tone of which was often marked by a similarity of taste. Huysmans later repaid the favor (of Hannon's positive review) publicly by writing the preface to a subsequent book of Hannon's poetry, Rhymes of Joy (Rimes de joie), but also—much more importantly—by including praise for the Belgian poet in the mouth of his character Des Esseintes, in Huysmans' seminal decadent novel À Rebours:[2]

"[speaking of Tristan Corbière's] decadence... des Esseintes discovered it again in another poet, Théodore Hannon, a disciple of Baudelaire and Gautier, ripe in the special sense of studied elegances and factitious joys...."[2]

• Les vingt-quatre coups de sonnet, Félix Callewaert, Bruxelles, 1876
• Rimes de joie, éditions Henry Kistemaeckers, Bruxelles, 1881.
• Au pays du Manneken-Pis, éditions Henry Kistemaeckers, Bruxelles, 1883. Illustration done by Amédée Ernest Lynen
• Le Candélabre (1883)
• La Valkyrigole (1887)
• Noëls fin-de-siècle (1892). Illustration done by Amédée Ernest Lynen
• Au clair de la dune, éditions Dorbon Ainé, Paris (1909) Online in French

• Drinkers of Phosphorous and Other Songs of Joy (originally Rimes de joie), Richard Robinson (Translator), J.-K. Huysmans (Preface), Snuggly Books, 2020.

• Paul Delsemme (1999), « Théodore Hannon », in Nouvelle biographie nationale, Bruxelles, volume V, pp. 189–194. online
• Paul Delsemme (2008), Théodore Hannon, poète moderniste, Bruxelles, Académie royale de langue et de littérature françaises de Belgique - online
• Joris-Karl Huysmans, Lettres à Théodore Hannon (1876-1886), edited, arranged and annotated by P. Cogny and Ch. Berg, Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire, Editions Christian Pirot, 1985.
• Jean-Jacques Symoens and Henri J. Dumont (2012), "Une famille belge de la Belle Epoque : les Hannon et les Rousseau, leur activité et leur héritage scientifique...", in Les Naturalistes belges, n°93, pp. 1–28 - online
• Gustave Vanwelkenhuyzen (1934), « J.-K. Huysmans et Théodore Hannon », in Revue franco-belge, December 1934, pp. 565–584.