Thomas Ring

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thomas Ring (born November 28, 1892 in Nuremberg , † August 24, 1983 in Schärding , Austria ) was a German astrologer , painter and poet .

Life

Childhood and youth

Thomas Ring was the only child of the engineer Nikodemus AK Ring (1867–1948) and Margarete Ring, b. Heinlein (1868–1947) was born in Nuremberg. His father's activity led to his early childhood in numerous places in Central Europe, but also in Holland, England and Russia. Having settled in Berlin from 1905, he was able to attend a “higher boys' school” there, but without a high school diploma. He countered his father's desire for engineering training with his artistic inclinations: this initially led to a compromise, an apprenticeship as a chemigrapher (from 1908 to 1911). After attending evening courses for two years, he became a full-time student in 1911 at the teaching institute of the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin , and from April 1913 in Emil Orlik's graphics class . He dealt intensively with the emerging expressionism and abstract painting , such as the theoretical writings of Kandinsky and the “Blue Rider” .

First World War and Berlin years 1914–1932

Infected by the general enthusiasm for the war, he volunteered for military service in early August 1914. At the end of October he was badly wounded by a gunshot; The bullet could only be removed from his ankle after six months in the Berlin University Clinic. After meeting Herwarth Walden , the editor of Sturm , he thanked him for opening his eyes to art and conveying joy in his own artistic creation. First he created poetry (published in the storm ) before he went back to war in July 1916, where he was captured by the British in November 1917 (at the Battle of Cambrai ), barely escaped execution for mutiny and two Was interned for years. There, in the Oswestry camp , he overcame internment apathy by struggling to find his personal creative expression, which led him to his “crystalline drawings”.

When he returned to Berlin, he met the director of the Sturm bookstore, Gertrud Schröder (1897–1945); they married in November 1920 and had two sons. They pursued their common interests as a student of Gertrud Grunow .

After initially confronting astrology as an “unbelieving Thomas” - interested (he read, for example, Paracelsus and Kepler ), but skeptical - he found in it a kind of framework for a new understanding of people and the world. From then on, he devoted himself to his main concern: a “ metamorphosis ” of traditional astrology into an “organic” science that encompasses man in its entirety - he himself called it “Revised Astrology” - through confrontation and synopsis with the results of the academic sciences, the more recent depth psychology and philosophical directions as well as the arts. In addition to intensive reading - RH Francé and Hans Kayser , for example - were important for the development of his views - he also attended lectures by important lecturers in Berlin, including Albert Einstein and Nicolai Hartmann . At the same time, the Swiss Alfred Fankhauser followed a similar approach , who also conveyed a newly understood astrology in writings and courses, albeit with a more psychological accent.

"Emigration" from Germany

As a “ degenerate artist ” and (since 1927) KPD member, he emigrated with his family to Austria at the end of 1932, where he devoted himself even more to astrology and where he and his wife earned a living with astrological consultations. With the " Anschluss " of Austria in 1938, his life situation became uncomfortable: the German Reich had refused to extend his passport (around 1935), his lifelong friend Hans Bender noted that Ring would only have become stateless after the "Anschluss". Even without a German passport such as the stateless passport , the artist was apparently able to travel to Leipzig or Oslo in 1937. Ring was after a house search in mid-June 1938 in order to Gestapo summoned in Graz, but was regardless of the end of June 1938, the Reich Chamber (Berlin) as " Reich Chamber of Fine Arts " (Vienna) join - Bender put the obituary to his friend again, this would be by the "Anschluss" was excluded from the chamber of arts and literature. Ring was otherwise left alone and was able to continue publishing, but was then expelled from the Reich Chamber of Literature at the end of June 1942, and finally also from the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts in April 1943.
In the spring of 1943 he was supposed to be assigned to the police from Graz to Norway "for duties in the defense of the Reich", but thanks to Hans Bender's initiative he was appointed director of the Paracelsus Institute in Strasbourg , where he arrived in May, although Bender moved to Ring Strasbourg indicates April 1942. In Neuwiller-lès-Saverne , about 40 km northwest of Strasbourg in the Vosges , the patron of the Paracelsus Institute, Friedrich Spieser , rented a house for Ring after a short time, while Spieser lived on the nearby Hüneburg , which belongs to the village . Ring and his wife Gertrud were picked up by the Allies and interned at the end of 1944; Gertrud Ring died on February 15, 1945 in the camp in Saint-Sulpice-la-Pointe , weakened due to malnutrition, of a serious infection.

After being a prisoner of war 1946–1983

He did not return to his home in Graz until the spring of 1946 after he had escaped from the camp. His two sons survived. After marrying the artist Irmtraut Bilger (1910–1999), he again became the father of a son and a daughter. In 1949 he received Austrian citizenship. In August 1952 the Ring family moved to the "Luchle" near Wittenschwand in the southern Black Forest , a small farmhouse belonging to his friend Hans Bender. In the 1950s he mainly worked on his astrological textbook, Astrological Human Studies . It was only after 1960 that he was able to overcome the destruction of almost all of his earlier pictures and drawings and begin his late artistic work. He shaped experiences from his childhood and his imprisonment in two novels, which he published as sequels in his magazine, the Werkstattbl Blätter. His astrological advisory activity is documented in around 700 typescripts with horoscope interpretations.

In 1962 he moved one last time: to an apartment in the Stettenfels castle complex near Heilbronn . Ring's friend Friedrich Spieser , whom Ring had known well since their time together at the Paraclesus Institute in Strasbourg, had acquired the castle a few years earlier. There he lived withdrawn, completely devoted to his astrological work. In 1983 Thomas Ring died (unexpectedly) of complications from appendicitis. His grave can be found in the Protestant cemetery of St. Peter in Graz .

His estate is in the German Literature Archive in Marbach .

Works

Poetry

  • About nothing and nothing again , private print, 1978
  • The Olympic return. A cycle of poems , Aurum, Freiburg 1985
  • Poems, selected from the years 1946–1983 , ed. v. Imtraut Ring, Classen, Zurich and Stuttgart 1985
  • The poetic and visual work 1916–1933 , ed. v. Volker Pirsich, Herzberg 1987, ISBN 3-88309-017-4

Astrological writings

The early works

  • 1925 Overcoming fate through astrology , Nirvana, Berlin
  • 1933–35 Astrological Lessons , I – IV, self-published, Johnsbach (hectographed)
  • 1938 planet signatures , Jos. C. Huber , Dießen am Ammersee
  • 1939 Human types reflected in pictures of the zodiac , R. Hummel, Leipzig
  • 1939 The solar system - an organism , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart
  • 1939 The living being in the rhythm of space , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart
  • 1941 The human in the field of fate , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart

The main work

The Astrological anthropology was first published in three volumes by Rascher in Zurich, was then reissued and updated with the fourth band at H. Bauer, Freiburg im Breisgau:

  • Volume 1: Forces and Force Relationships , 1956
  • Volume 2: Expression and Direction of Forces , 1959
  • Volume 3: Combination theory , 1969
  • Volume 4: The Living Model , 1973

Chiron-Verlag, Tübingen, has got the following new edition:

The later works

  • 1958 Zodiac and the human organism , Ebertin, Aalen
  • 1972 Astrology without superstition. Can we shape our own life or is it predetermined? Econ, Düsseldorf (revised new edition ibid. 1978)
  • 1975 Existence and being from a cosmological perspective , Aurum, Freiburg
  • 1977 a new look at astrology. The cosmos within us , Aurum, Freiburg
  • 1978 My Alphabet , Thomas Ring Foundation, Romanshorn
  • 1980 Genius and Demon. Structural images of creative people , Aurum, Freiburg

From the estate

  • 1986 The basic structure. The position of man in nature and the cosmos . With an afterword by Erp Ring, Aurum, Freiburg
  • 1992 Structural images of brilliant people (48 cosmogram drawings from My Alphabet as a facsimile in a folder), Thomas Ring Foundation, Zurich
  • 1995 Early astrological writings : Overcoming fate through astrology, Berlin 1925 - planet signatures, Munich 1938 - types of people reflected in images of the zodiac, Leipzig 1939, Astrodienst Verlag, Zollikon, ISBN 3-905255-01-4
  • 1999 Zurich Lectures: Behind the Curtain of Reason / The Reality of the Invisible , Thomas Ring Foundation, Zurich
  • 2000 Symbolik , Thomas Ring Foundation, Zurich
  • 2001 Cosmic Signatures of Life , Thomas Ring Foundation, Zurich
  • 2010 Symbol circle of creation , Chiron Verlag, Tübingen ISBN 978-3-89997-181-1

Audio book

literature

  • Thomas Ring Foundation (ed.): Testimonials , Romanshorn 1982 (now Zurich)
  • All about love , pen drawings and texts, City of Witten, Edition Märkisches Museum 1983
  • Skiebe, Ingrid: Thomas Ring - a painter from the area of ​​the "Sturm". Life, style-critical analysis and catalog raisonné , Bautz, Herzberg 1988 (= Diss. Bonn), ISBN 3-88309-025-5
  • Brockhaus, Christoph / Leinz, Gottlieb (eds.): Thomas Ring (1892–1983) . Catalog for the exhibition, Duisburg 1988
  • Museum of the City of Ettlingen (Ed.): Retrospective Thomas Ring . Catalog for the exhibition in the Städtische Galerie Bietigheim-Bissingen 1993
  • Schübl, Elmar: Jean Gebser and the question of astrology. A philosophical-anthropological study based on the astrological view of Thomas Ring , Novalis, Schaffhausen 2003, ISBN 3-907160-27-4

Movie

  • 1976: Thomas Ring. A production by Saarland Radio / Television (15 minutes). Script and direction: Klaus Peter Dencker
  • 1976: Ring about signs of the zodiac 1. A production by Saarland Radio / Television (5 minutes). Script and direction: Klaus Peter Dencker
  • 1976: Ring about zodiac 2. A production by Saarland radio / television (4 minutes). Script and direction: Klaus Peter Dencker

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Bender: Thomas Ring zum Gedächtnis , in: Zeitschrift für Parapsychologie und Grenzgebiete der Psychologie , Volume 26, Issues 1–4 (were only published together in one annual volume), pp. 225–227.
  2. ^ Ingrid Skiebe: Thomas Ring - a painter from the circle of the "Sturm": life, style-critical analysis a. Catalog raisonné . Verlag Traugott Bautz, Herzberg 1988. pp. 148-149. If one takes stock of Ring's statements and his actions, he could and wanted to travel to Nazi Germany in 1937 as a stateless person without a German like Nansen passport , as a "degenerate artist" with a communist past known to the Nazi authorities and pay visits there .
  3. ↑ Hans Bender: Thomas Ring zum Gedächtnis , in: Journal for Parapsychology and Frontier Areas of Psychology , Volume 26, Issues 1-4, p. 227.
  4. ^ Ingrid Skiebe: Thomas Ring - a painter from the circle of the "Sturm": life, style-critical analysis a. Catalog raisonné . P. 149, p. 152.
  5. ^ Ingrid Skiebe: Thomas Ring - a painter from the circle of the "Sturm": life, style-critical analysis a. Catalog raisonné , p. 153.
  6. ↑ Ingrid Skiebe, Thomas Ring - a painter from the circle of the "Sturm": life, style-critical analysis a. Catalog raisonné , p. 165 and Note 1 + 2 there. In 1981, Ring remarked to the author that it would have been a synonym for a "punishment company" where one would have been killed. On the other hand, "penal companies" as part of the Wehrmacht at that time were "reserved" for members of the Wehrmacht and were not set up for the camouflaged killing of "unpopular" people. Ring was also 50 years old at the time.
  7. ↑ Hans Bender, Thomas Ring zum Gedächtnis , p. 227.
  8. ↑ Ingrid Skiebe, Thomas Ring - a painter from the circle of the "Sturm": life, style-critical analysis a. Catalog raisonné , p. 166.
  9. ^ Frank-Rutger Hausmann : Hans Bender (1907-1991) and the "Institute for Psychology and Clinical Psychology" at the University of Strasbourg. 1941-1944. Ergon-Verlag, Würzburg 2006, ISBN 3-89913-530-X ( border crossings 4). P. 133.
  10. ↑ Skiebe, Thomas Ring - a painter from the circle of the "storm": life, style-critical analysis u. Catalog raisonné , p. 171
  11. ↑ Ingrid Skiebe, Thomas Ring - a painter from the circle of the "Sturm": life, style-critical analysis a. Catalog raisonné , p. 167.
  12. ^ Frank-Rutger Hausmann , Hans Bender (1907–1991) and the "Institute for Psychology and Clinical Psychology" at the University of Strasbourg. 1941-1944 , p. 108, p. 134.
personal data
SURNAME Ring, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter, poet and astrologer
DATE OF BIRTH November 28, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Nuremberg
DATE OF DEATH August 24, 1983
Place of death Schärding , Austria