Abstract. Italian painting in its transition from the art of the Middle ages to the High Renaissance shows a trend of spirituality, including emphatically human, often clothed in religious subjects and filled with a special vitality. This can be correlated with Russian art, also emphasized by spiritual art, which seeks to reflect the «salt of life», whatever it may be. The trend of similarity extends to some non-religious subjects, as well as to religious images that do not have the character of icons. It is interesting that the Catholic tradition, which for a while was fed by the religious paintings of Byzantium, presents in this case «icons» that are more correlated, perhaps, with Russian painting. Venetian painting, due to its well – known specificity, demonstrates the features in question more vividly-in particular, within the framework of the art of Giovanni Bellini, whose creative personality, which has experienced various influences, allowed creating images that are quite close in their spiritual content and form to Russian religious and other paintings. The relevance of the research is connected with a deep cultural correlation of cultures, with the aim of better cross-cultural and international communication, with the aim of mutual acquaintance with cultural products that are closer and more understandable to both sides, due to the universal content, greater cultural closeness shown in these works. This is all the more relevant because the world community in the era of globalization and technization is facing the problem of forming a new modern culture that is far from the inhumane standards of mass cultural production. The novelty of the research is determined by its relevance, cultural correlation of different societies at different historical stages of their existence – to identify a similar cultural Genesis, determined by both objective factors and subjective moral choice of cultural carriers associated with universal values. Taking as a subject of research the features of painting d. Bellini, similar formal and meaningful works of Russian painting, showing the spiritual relationship of Italian Renaissance art and Russian art, the author carries out the comparative cultural analysis, referring to the facts of the history and culture of Antiquity, the middle Ages, Renaissance in Europe, the facts of Russian history and culture, to reflect on this topic authors Express as «standard» and original point of view in connection with a specified subject. The results of the work include the conclusion about the spiritual closeness of the works of Giovanni Bellini with Russian painting due to the deep and lively creative personality of the artist, which allowed flexible, successful response to a variety of artistic trends, including, for example, the influence of the original artist A. Mantegna, on the «Northern» cultural impact; due to the moral impulse of talented representatives of the European Renaissance (with certain common European roots of the two cultures), expressed in religious and other painting.

Key words: religious painting, Giovanni Bellini, Italian Renaissance, Russian painting, spirituality, cultural correlation, cultural genesis, cultural similarity.