Russian
painter and educator, renowned master of reproductive engraving.
Mathe studied engraving techniques under Lavrenty Seryakov (1870-1875) at the Drawing
School with the Society for the Encouragement of Arts. He continued his studies
under Fyodor Jordan (1875–1880) in the engraving class with the Academy of Fine
Arts in St. Petersburg. Upon graduation he was awarded a silver medal and a trip
to Paris (1880 – 1884) where he took lessons from Adolf Pannemaker, a wood
engraver, and studied etching under Claude Galliard. After his return to
Russia, Mathe taught at Baron Stiglitz’ Technical Drawing School (1884-1909) and from 1894 to
1917, was a professor at the engraving chair with the Academy of Fine Arts.
From 1911, he taught at the Drawing School with the Society for the
Encouragement of Arts. In addition, he taught various engraving techniques to
Ilya Repin, Valentin Serov, Isaak Levitan, Boris Kustodiev, Konstantin Somov,
Evgeny Lanceret, Lev Bakst and Konstantin Yuon. Among his students were Nikolay
Gerardov, Valentin Bystrenin, Ivan Fomin, Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Ivan Pavlov,
and Pavel Shillingovsky.
Mathe mainly focused
on reproducing original paintings and drawings using engraving techniques.
Already in the early years of his creative career, experimenting with colour
reproduction, he created a two-colour woodcut on a single plate depicting a
piece of Alexander Ivanov’s Yavlenie
Khrista narodu [“The Appearance of Christ to the People”]. But he was most
successful in black and white xylography. In 1899, Mathe changed from
xylography to etching (a total of 278 plates), which, in his opinion, afforded
broad opportunities for creative interpretation of the original. The artist was
a truly virtuoso etcher perfectly imitating jagged pencil lines, the fluidity
of brushstrokes and sketchiness of painting. At the time when photography was
virtually displacing reproduction woodcuts, Mathe’s works, conceived as copies, afforded a
different way of reproducing – through co-authoring and displaying strong
aspects of painting by means of other techniques. This enriched prints in a
significant way transforming them into an art in their own right.
