Adolf Zeising

Adolf Zeising (* September 24 1810 in Ballenstedt, † April 27, 1876 in Munich) was a German writer and scholar who has become best known as the founder and propagator of the doctrine of the golden section.

Life

Adolf Zeising was the son of a chamber musician at the court of the Duke Ballenstedter of Anhalt- Bernburg. He grew up in Ballenstedt and Bernburg, studied in Berlin and Halle, mainly philology and philosophy, then worked as a teacher in Bernburg. In 1848 he was appointed professor at the Bernburg school. In the revolution of 1848/49 he was one of the liberal spokesman and editor of an opposition paper " Sprechsaal for the Anhalt people." He belonged in 1848 to the left wing of the democratic parliament of Anhalt- Bernburg. Because of this political activity fell into disgrace, he retired in 1852 with a half-pay scheme for ten years from the Anhalt school service from. His subsequent requests to return rejected by the ducal government. Zeising lived from 1855 as a writer in Munich, where he ( novels, plays, short stories, translations from Greek, nonfiction, etc.) published in astonishing abundance of scientific, philosophical and literary texts, the local literary life, including in the circle of poets The crocodiles, participated. He died in financial need and after a serious illness in Munich. His descendants include the physicist Werner Heisenberg, a great-grandson of Zeising.

Literary work

Even from the time students come first publications of poetry and prose, including issued in by Gustav Schwab and Adelbert von Chamisso German Musenalmanach. From before 1848, published under the pseudonym " Richard Morningstar " poetry " Time Poems " (1846 ) stands out, a collection of powerful seals in the liberal spirit of the pre-March period. The edition has been largely scrapped by the censors. From the Munich period are, inter alia, extensive novels such as " bullish, bearish " (1864 ), "Art and favor " (1865 ), " Joppa and crinoline " (1865 ), the tragedy " Empress Eudoxia " (1861 ). The focus of Zeisings work lay in the aesthetic, scientific and philosophical area. His treatise " New theory of proportions of the human body " (1854 ) made ​​him the protagonists of division rule from Golden section known that Zeising in the subsequent period in many scriptures as a general design law in nature, the human body, art, architecture, among other things attempted to prove and justify. It is a synthesis of his religious- philosophical worldview in the book " Religion and Science, Church and State " (1873 ), which develops a life-affirming philosophy that interprets all phenomena of nature as the Spirit as flowing from " common Ground of " the divine being.

Other Works (selection)

  • Aesthetic Research, 1855.
  • The proportions of the human form and the leaf position in their equality and diversity, 1855.
  • The human head in profile, 1856.
  • The proportions of pure ancient statues, 1856.
  • About the metamorphoses in the proportions of the human form from birth until the age of Längenwachtums, 1858.
  • The ratios of the Cologne Cathedral, 1869.
  • The regular polyhedra, 1869.
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