Illustrated magazines of the XIXth century are filled with humorous pictures devoted to love. Those pictures are not masterpieces, but they are like specific doctors of people's hearts. Laughter and smile cure from very serious attitude to love, help to look at oneself with irony. Cupid with a bow and arrows looking for a young innocent heart is one of the main figures of caricatures (see P. Markov's drawing in "Iskra" 1859). "This is the place of pure love," - thinks the Cupid and shoots an arrow. And what? The Cupid cried bitterly. He saw shares, banknotes and even coins pour out of "innocent" heart.

Broken love, love-drug, love of the first people on our planet... "Adam and Eve's Love Affair" by J. Effel was published in 1974. His smiling and touching characters are popular and known to millions of people. But only few know humorous muscled Soviet young people drawn by A. Radakov of the 1940s. Adam and Eve by D. Moor are also known.

Soviet people used to live under Mukhina's worker with a hammer and a peasant with a sickle. Satirists made fun of their non-participating in social life and unwillingness to increase their cultural level. The most favourite topic of Soviet caricaturists used to be a wife with a rolling-pin waiting for a drunk husband, or wife's shopaholism which caused husband's embezzlement or stealing. But it is not about romance... "He and She" topic was of great interest for many artists: A. Born, T. Ungerer, X. Balk, E. Dallosh, K.-P. Kurtse, E. Osipov, K. Melikhan, E. Lipinsky, I. Anchukov. The dialogue of a lady and a gentleman in K. Melikhan's caricature is as follows: "Are you married? - Yes, but not completely." E. Lipinsky is the author of "Ulysses and Penelope", "Louis XVI and Madame Pompadour", "Chopin and George Sand". E. Agramonte, a Cuban, drew in the column "He and She" of the "Bohemia" magazine. Every caricaturist created a man and a woman in his/her own image. Plump characters of R. Surle contrast with the ones of S. Steinberg or M. Bartak. The Russian He and She of Tunin differ from M. Zlatkovsky's quarrelsome characters. As a matter of fact, men's behaviour in similar situations is almost the same. For example, G. Butner's man puts a suitcase on lady's head to protect her from rain; a man in P. Kulinich's caricature plays the accordion while "she" draws water out of the well. Kisses are also different: two jet of candles' smoke kiss each other in A. Aldridge's drawing, two legs looking like woman's plaits - in I. Sliva's caricature, etc.

Some years ago this topic was not approved because it had some erotic shade. Erotica was not officially recognized and the authorities fought hard against it. During the years of "perestroika" Mukhina's "Worker and Peasant" stopped being Soviet saints.