Independent creative learning in painting as a factor to improve students’ spiritual and moral education

The article examines the urgent problem of improving the spiritual and moral education of future artist-teachers through the activation of their independent educational and creative work in painting amidst modern-day Russia. The most important aspect of spiritual and moral education is the orientation of student youth to participate in international exhibitions and scientific-practical conferences devoted to patriotic themes. Due to the ongoing events in the world and modern Russia, changes in the system of art and pedagogical education are inevitable, aimed at solving global problems related to the formation of a socially active, creative and harmonious personality of the future teacher of fine arts. In 2022-2023, we developed a pedagogical technology of spiritual and moral education (SME) for students of art and graphic faculties, the results of the implementation of which we consider in this publication. As the pedagogical experiment showed, this technology proved to be effective, identifying new problematic issues that take into account the realities of today. Further improvement of the technology will make it possible to create a full-fledged methodological system. The results of the study showed that the implemented innovative content and methods of art education, especially in independent fine arts activities, significantly affected not only the quality of learning, but also the development of the spiritual component of students’ personality.