Amateur painting is commonly associated with a practice that is carried out for simple pleasure and in an uncompromising way. Such a lack of commitment to the art system gives to the expression “amateur painter” often a pejorative meaning. The idea that different types of amateur painters should not be included in a unique definition is supported in this article. It emerges that there is a specific type of amateur painter that differs from the others, which we will call “amateur by vocation”. Based on the concept of “serious leisure”, the text aims to characterize this specific type of amateur painter. Starting from the hypothesis that, even not aiming at professionalization, the amateur painter by vocation differs from the others by seeking an identity sign in his work. In this type of amateurism there is a propensity and disposition to seek systematically historical, technical and conceptual knowledge in order to improve his work.

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ARJ(2023)