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Why did Paul Gauguin view losing his stockbroker job as an opportunity?

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Self-portrait painting by Paul Gauguin showing the artist with a mustache, yellow halo, and stylized plants against a vivid orange background with green and red fruit. — Paul Gauguin Self-portrait by Paul Gauguin, oil on wood, 1889; in the Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. 79.2 × 51.3 cm.

When the French stock market crashed in 1882, Paul Gauguin lost his job as a stockbroker. He viewed this event as a positive development because it provided him with the freedom to "paint every day."1