The Copied Wave: Evidence and Influence in Cross-Cultural Comparison
An SL candidate has completed a ten-screen comparative study comparing Hokusai's Under the Wave off Kanagawa (c.1831), Van Gogh's The Starry Night (1889) and a 2019 digital animation by a contemporary Japanese artist who cites both. The draft's central claim is that Van Gogh 'copied Hokusai's wave' because both works use curling, claw-like forms and a dominant blue palette. The student supports this with two art blogs and a museum wall text stating that Van Gogh admired Japanese prints. Two screens remain, and the internal deadline is in nine days. The teacher knows Van Gogh collected ukiyo-e and copied Hiroshige, but no source in the draft documents a specific link to Hokusai. The candidate wants to keep the claim because it 'makes the comparison interesting.' The comparative study requires at least three works by at least two artists.
1. What is the strongest defensible version of the student's claim, and what must change in the draft to support it?
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The draft conflates three different claims: (a) Van Gogh was interested in Japanese prints, (b) he borrowed motifs from ukiyo-e, and (c) he copied this specific Hokusai wave. Only (a) is documented by the sources described. A defensible version separates influence as context from influence as direct transmission.
The student should write something like: 'Van Gogh's known engagement with Japanese print culture makes shared formal strategies legible, but the evidence does not establish that he copied Under the Wave.' Then the comparison can do real work: compare how the curling form functions in each work. In Hokusai, the wave frames Mount Fuji and organises a commercial print; in Van Gogh, the sky is expressive and unstable rather than a motif extracted from a print.
Use the two remaining screens for a source that dates Van Gogh's collecting or copying of Hiroshige, plus close visual analysis. If the student wants a causal claim, it must be hedged or dropped. The strongest conclusion is about affinity and contextual reception, not plagiarism.
2. The student says the claim 'makes the comparison interesting.' How should the teacher respond, and what does this reveal about the purpose of comparison?
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'Interesting' is not an assessment criterion. The comparative study rewards a conclusion that is proportionate to evidence and that shows understanding of context. A causal claim that cannot be supported makes the comparison look unscholarly, and examiners are alert to arguments built only on visual similarity.
The teacher should ask what the comparison reveals if the influence claim is removed. For example, both artists use a dominating blue and a spiralling form, but one is a reproducible commercial print in Edo-period Japan and the other a unique oil painting made in a French asylum. The comparison becomes more interesting because it explains difference, not lineage.
The teacher can model a sentence: 'The resemblance is productive as a prompt, not as proof.' Then the student can use the remaining screens for a counterexample - an ukiyo-e print Van Gogh demonstrably copied - to show what real evidence of borrowing looks like. This teaches the difference between comparison and lineage.