The first time I encountered art described as "painterly" it was Braid. That was some fairly successful art.
Pick G. Run from the others, and don't look back.
Related to Braid, I fired it up to refresh my memory on its style. One thing I'll say, though, is that it has a very, very large distinction between the foreground and the background. The background does look very indistinct, blurred and, (I cringe) painterly. It also has in some cases a number of different parallax layers. The foreground, though, is incredibly sharp and the animations are extremely smooth.
But what I'll say is that Braid has quite a different style to AVWW. Braid is really indie. It's a super artsy game - fun to play, short, with a story and art style (and hidden meaning) that support all that. It is indie. The painterly, indie art style, designed to support the mood and story more than the gameplay, is appropriate.
But AVWW isn't like that. It's a game designed to be played for dozens of hours, if not dozens of dozens - a span of time where having crisp, beautiful gameplay will remain important long after the player has fully absorbed the setting. It's a game where looking entirely unique and indie has to take a back seat to being consistently playable. I don't think there's any doubt (except from Misery, who seems to be contractually obligated to disagree with my view on anything
) that G would look spectacular, and I think it will support and enhance the gameplay much more than any painterly option can.
As an addendum, if you want to go the Braid route, please make the foreground crisp and pixel-perfect art (like Braid) and make the backgrounds less distinct. Part of the problem right now is those two are mixed pretty freely (and also perhaps that many objects could do with being part of the background, like most of the random plants underground).
