Jeremy

Some information in this article is incorrect.

Maelles friends didn't begin to dissappear when entering that outer canvas realm where Versos soul was because Maelle died. It was because they only exist inside the canvas, and that area is not somewhere they exist. (Lune recognizes this and instead sits on the other side of the portal.)

Everyone was gommaged after the Paintress died, yes. But that had nothing to do with the Paintress dying. It had to do with the fact that while the Paintress was eternally trapped on the monolith, she also kept Renoir eternally trapped underneath the monolith (over the last 67 years), and the moment she died, he was free.

It was Renoir who used his painter powers and the massive amount of chroma he had collected over nearly seven decades to erase everyone.

This is something he's been trying to do the entire time, but was actively being stopped by the paintress. (Though not entirely, hence why she was able to protect everyone under a certain age, year after year)

The canvas was destroyed in the verso ending, because in this world, the reason why these paintings come to life the way they do is because the painters/paintresses place a piece of their very soul into the canvas. Painted Verso freed that piece of versos soul, so the canvas lost its magic and everyone died.

The reason why painted verso was able to cross the barrier into the outer canvas was because (I think) he is directly connected to that piece of versos soul. (Hence his immortality) as a way for the paintress to essentially bring her son back to life.