CHICAGO (CBS) — A social media clip of a 2014 video showing actor Bill Murray talking about a painting he said saved his life recently caught the attention of CBS News Chicago.
“I think it’s called ‘The Song of the Lark,’ and it’s a woman working in a field and behind her there’s a sunrise,” Murray said in the clip.
Murray said it was early in his career and he felt hopeless after a performance. So Marie Saavedra of CBS News Chicago went looking for that painting.
Gloria Groom of the Art Institute of Chicago described “The Song of the Lark.”
CBS
“It has always been here, and it is one of our most beloved paintings,” Groom said. “The main heroine of this painting is this young peasant girl, and you see her walking barefoot along this path and she is wearing the attire of a day laborer.”
The groom added that the woman in the painting “is simply caught by the song made by a skylark.”
Jules Breton painted it in France in 1884. Ten years later it found its way to the Art Institute. Like many paintings, it means different things to different people.
“When it was shown in Paris, it was an affirmation that farmers belonged in the land,” Groom said. “When it became about America, it took on a completely different sensibility. It’s about ambition.”
Murray talked about the painting’s effect on him.
“I think that made me feel like I too am a person and every day the sun rises I have a new chance,” he said.
It was not the first time that the painting became known. In 1934, it was named the most beloved painting in American collections and was unveiled by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
Author Willa Cather has a book named after it.
To this day, Groom says she often sees groups of people gathering around the painting, inspired by “The Song of the Lark.”
“That’s why we have a museum,” Groom said. “And that’s why we do what we do.”
Marie Saavedra
