How an 1884 painting at Chicago’s Art Institute saved Bill Murray’s life
By Marie Saavedra
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CHICAGO (WBBM) — A social media clip of a 2014 video of actor Bill Murray talking about a painting that he said saved his life recently got 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 there’s a sunrise behind her,” Murray said in the clip.
Murray said it was early on in his career and he was feeling hopeless after a performance. So CBS News Chicago’s Marie Saavedra went looking for that painting.
The Art Institute of Chicago’s Gloria Groom described “The Song of the Lark.”
“It’s just been here forever, and it’s one of our most beloved paintings,” Groom said. “The main heroine of this painting is this young peasant girl, and you see her walking down this path with her bare feet and she’s wearing the garb of a day worker.”
Groom added the woman in the painting is “just caught transfixed by the song that is being made by a skylark.”
Jules Breton painted it in 1884 in France. A decade later, it made its way to the Art Institute. Like many paintings, it means different things to different people.
“When it was shown in Paris, it was a confirmation that peasants belonged in the fields,” Groom said. “When it came to America, it took on a completely different sensibility. It’s about aspiration.”
Murray talked about the painting’s effect on him.
“I think that gave me some sort of feeling that I too am a person and get another chance everyday the sun comes up,” he said.
It wasn’t the painting’s first brush with fame. In 1934, it was voted the most beloved painting in American collections and was unveiled by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
Author Willa Cather named a book after it.
To this day, Groom said she often finds 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.”
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