I.Igin was also interested in the art of making masks. In 1931 he taught children to make masks of Mussolini and other fascist leaders.

The words "mask" and "caricature" joined as far as in 1905. One of the satiric magazines was published in the title "Masks". Its editor was S. Chekhonin.

There are museums of masks. Some of them are funny, but some - scary. Slavonian masks are for fun while African ones are usually for frightening. Modern African masks of a merchant, an official, and a colonizer act in satiric performances. Remember the masks of ancient Greece comedy and characters of Italian comedy de l'arte. There was no canonical text in the comedy de l'arte, the actors improvised at every performance: Tartalya (a stutterer) can not tell anything although tries his best, he is very expressive like a caricature, so the words are not important. Masks were used by many actors (C. Chaplin, A. Raikin) and writers (K. Prutkov) in their own ways.

Great F. Goya in his "Caprichos" shows the world like a stage where people-actors represent their masks, hiding their real worth. (Nobody knows anyone", "He could not even see her"). In the beginning of the XXth century vanguard-artists especially such ironic artists like P. Picasso and M. Chagall used masks in their creative work. Political caricature is the sphere where the artists can not do without masks because politics itself makes people hide their thoughts and feelings. These masks participate in shows to reveal political machinations of opponents. Modern caricature is hardly an art of characters, it is rather an art of masks, making intelligence and stupidity, richness and poverty, love and hatred, strength and weakness.