Actor Bill Murray is known for his eccentric and at times aloof demeanor. But despite his public persona, he is an artist through and through, and is moved by powerful art just like anyone else. In fact, he has declared that a painting saved him at one of the lowest points in his life.
Murray recounted this moment during a press conference for the 2014 film The Monuments Men. Directed by George Clooney, the movie follows a group of Allied soldiers tasked with finding and saving pieces of art before Nazis destroy them during World War II. Following the theme of the movie, Murray was asked if he could pinpoint a time in his life when art made a difference to him.
The actor then recalled a time at the beginning of his career in Chicago, during one of his first times on stage. “I was so bad I just walked out onto the street and just started walking.” Disenchanted with life, he was walking toward Lake Michigan when he came across the Art Institute of Chicago and chose to go inside. There he came across Jules Breton’s Song of the Lark, from 1884.
“There’s a painting there. I don’t even know who painted it,” Murray said. “It’s a woman working in a field, and there’s a sunrise behind her, and I’ve always loved this painting. I saw it that day, and I just thought, ‘Well, look, there’s a girl who doesn’t have a whole lot of prospects, but the sun’s coming up anyway, and she’s got another chance at it.’ So, I think that gave me some sort of feeling that I, too, am a person and get another chance every day the sun comes up.”
The painting has touched many lives since its arrival in Chicago 10 years after its creation. According to the Art Institute, it was deemed the most popular painting in America in a poll conducted in 1934, and was also Eleanor Roosevelt’s favorite work of art.
“Jules Breton specialized in scenes of rustic life in the countryside. Having been raised in the rural village of Courrières in northern France, he admired the people living there for their resourcefulness and connection to nature and gained immense popularity by painting them in his idealized style,” explains the Art Institute of Chicago.
“When it was shown in Paris,” Gloria Groom, chair of Painting and Sculpture of Europe, told CBS News, “it was a confirmation that peasants belonged in the fields. When it came to America, it took on a completely different sensibility. It’s about aspiration.” Murray’s unprompted reaction is further proof of this, and the fact that art can mean different things to different people.
If you’re ever at the Art Institute of Chicago and want to see this painting with your own eyes, you can find it in Gallery 222 as part of the Painting and Sculpture of Europe collections.
Actor Bill Murray once declared that the painting Song of the Lark by Jules Breton saved him at one of the lowest points in his life.
Watch Murray explain his personal story with this painting:
Sources: How an 1884 painting at Chicago’s Art Institute saved Bill Murray’s life; The Song of the Lark at the Art Institute of Chicago
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