Art historian Melissa McQuillan believes the moves also reflect later stylistic changes, and that Van Gogh used the moves to avoid conflict, and as a coping mechanism for when the idealistic artist was faced with the realities of his then current situation.
Art historian Melissa McQuillan believes the moves also reflect later changes "in style, his reorientation of his enterprise (which) might be linked". She writes that "moving on became a way of avoiding conflict," and a coping mechanism for when the highly idealistic artist was faced with the realities of his then current situation.