'' in
Woltersdorf near Berlin. This house was built after designs by Fidus between 1908 and 1910. Today it is a cultural heritage monument. Born the son of a confectioner in
Lübeck, Höppener demonstrated artistic talent at an early age. Around 1886 he met the "apostle of nature" and artist
Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach (1851–1913), and joined Diefenbach's commune near Munich. On Diefenbach's behalf, he served a brief prison sentence for public nudity, earning him the name Fidus ("faithful"). In 1892 he moved to Berlin, set up another commune, and worked as an illustrator on the magazine
Sphinx. His work appeared frequently in
Jugend and other illustrated magazines. He created many ornamental drawings, especially for book decoration, as well as ex-libris, posters and designs. He was one of the first artists to use advertising postcards to promote his work. He also contributed to the early
homosexual magazine
Der Eigene, published by
Adolf Brand. He held mystical
Theosophical beliefs, and became interested in German mythology. His early illustrations contained dream-like abstractions, while his later work was characterised by motifs such as peasants, warriors, and other naked human figures in natural settings. He often combined mysticism, eroticism, and symbolism, in
Art Nouveau and
Sezessionist styles. By 1900 he was one of the best known painters in Germany, and had come under the influence of writers such as
Arthur Moeller van den Bruck,
Heinrich and Julius Hart, and the anti-materialist
garden city and
Wandervogel movements. His most famous painting is
Light Prayer, which he made in eleven versions from 1890 to 1938. In 1908 he joined the , a religious group led by the painter
Ludwig Fahrenkrog, which combined
Germanic neopaganism with teachings about self-redemption. In 1912 he designed a famous poster for a congress on "biological hygiene" in Hamburg, showing a man in the process of breaking his bonds and rising up to the stars. Fidus had been introduced to theosophy by
Wilhelm Hübbe-Schleiden. He attended the meeting of the theosophists in Berlin in February 1913 where there was a split between the group led by
Rudolf Steiner and the original group under
Annie Besant. Prior to the meeting, Steiner had cast out many members including Hübbe-Schleiden. Fidus left the Steiner group and stayed with the Annie Besant faction. After 1918, interest in Fidus' work as an illustrator ebbed. Fidus perceived the
blood and soil (
Blut und Boden) idea in Nazism to fit with his veneration of nature and the human spirit, so he joined the party in 1932. However, he did not receive the support of the Nazi regime and his works were banned altogether in 1937 for the perceived promotion of
esotericism. Fidus renounced his Nazi Party membership and joined the
Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party. He died from a stroke in 1948. ==Legacy==