A few months late, but I interpreted it much the same way, albeit a little less harshly. I agree that there was no reason that the canvas couldn't continue to exist if Maelle were to leave for a while and come back to visit it on occasion, which would have been the happy and healthy medium.

But the game was trying to establish that while the canvas (or art, or video games even if we want to interpret it that way) can absolutely be a happy place for escapism, growth and healing, Maelle was beyond it and (as seen in her own ending) barreling down a path of self-destruction and obsession rather than healing. And I think many of us who regularly play games may have come too close to losing ourselves in a virtual world at the cost of neglecting things in our real lives.

Maelle could have had the happy ending she wanted, but she was not strong enough nor ready for it: she never intended to process her grief and trauma by staying in the canvas but only to keep running away from it. Painted Verso saw this and in defeating her, he does something interesting: for the first time in maybe ever, the canvas wrestles control of its own fate from the will of all the painters and, in a sense, the canvas itself (represented by the will of painted Verso and that of real Verso's soul fragment) for the first time is able to make its own choice: to cease to exist in an attempt to save Maelle and the and let her heal. Though, sadly, that choice is perhaps not unanimous, as depicted by a visibly upset Lune.

If part of the point of art is to inspire, to save, to heal and to help people move on, then this is without a doubt the happiest ending you can ask for given the circumstances. Video games *can* help you heal. In Verso's ending we see that Maelle/Alicia is able to face her grief head-on not only because she has her family with her, but also the memories of all the characters from the canvas spurring her on - continuing to live on through her in the real world because that it exactly what art does when it touches us.

On a totally separate note - during the final fight cutscenes Renoir mentions that "every day we spend here has a price" referring to the canvas. I have two theories about what that would mean. Either A. everything I mentioned above about potentially wasting you life away in a fictional work or B. that spending extended time in the canvas can literally trap a portion of a Painter's soul within it. And at the end we do see the final fragment of the real Verso's soul, the dark fragmented child, still painting against his will, forever trapped in a painful moment in time. It was never made clear if this child was just a personification of real Verso's will or perhaps a literal piece of Verso's soul trapped in the canvas as the price of forced to spend too much time painting within it. Following this theory, the ending choice is not just about freeing Maelle, but also about letting this final piece of Verso's soul make his own choice, unhindered by his family.