Van Gogh found that unlike his past experiences in Paris, he was no longer used to the commotion of the city[3] and was too agitated to paint.

His brother, Theo and artist Camille Pissarro developed a plan for Van Gogh to go to Auvers-sur-Oise with a letter of introduction for Dr. Paul Gachet,[2] a homeopathic physician and art patron who lived in Auvers.

[1][4] Van Gogh had a room at the inn Auberge Ravoux in Auvers[3] and was under the care and supervision of Dr. Gachet[1] with whom he grew to have a close relationship, "something like another brother."

[5] In Primitivism, Cubism, Abstraction: The Early Twentieth Century, the authors compare Van Gogh's Girl in White to the portrait of a woman in John Byam Shaw's 1900 Boer War.

They make the comparison by identifying desired characteristics of modernistic art, such as works "emphasizing formal aspects, and as embodying what they took to be a 'primitive' or 'direct' vision such as Vincent van Gogh's Girl in White.

The more primitive and direct works, they say, provide a richer feeling, whereas the literal interpretation represents a lack of "emotional content".