Why did Camille Pissarro choose painting instead of joining his family’s business?

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Camille Pissarro: Self-Portrait — Camille Pissarro *Self-Portrait*, oil on canvas by Camille Pissarro, 1873; in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

Camille Pissarro chose to pursue painting over his family’s business because he felt a strong, irrepressible calling to art that made the prospect of a commercial career feel like "the bondage of bourgeois life."1

Although his father expected him to join the family merchant business in St. Thomas, Pissarro was deeply uninterested in that path, preferring to spend his time sketching at the harbor. His determination was so firm that he eventually "abandoned all" to travel to Venezuela with the painter Fritz Melbye in 1852. Despite his parents' initial resistance, they eventually recognized that no amount of argument could sway his commitment to his craft, leading him to leave home permanently in 1855 to pursue his career as a painter in Paris.1