![\"Bill](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/bill-murray-painting-saved-life-1.jpg\")
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Photo: DenisMakarenko\/Depositphotos<\/a><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Murray recounted this moment\u00a0during 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.<\/p>\n The actor then recalled a time at the beginning of his career in Chicago, during one of his first times on stage. \u201cI was so bad I just walked out onto the street and just started walking.\u201d 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\u2019s Song of the Lark, from 1884.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a painting there. I don\u2019t even know who painted it,\u201d Murray said. \u201cIt\u2019s a woman working in a field, and there\u2019s a sunrise behind her, and I\u2019ve always loved this painting. I saw it that day, and I just thought, \u2018Well, look, there\u2019s a girl who doesn\u2019t have a whole lot of prospects, but the sun\u2019s coming up anyway, and she\u2019s got another chance at it.\u2019 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.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019s favorite work of art.<\/p>\n \u201cJules Breton specialized in scenes of rustic life in the countryside. Having been raised in the rural village of Courri\u00e8res 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,\u201d explains<\/a> the Art Institute of Chicago.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen it was shown in Paris,\u201d Gloria Groom, chair of Painting and Sculpture of Europe, told CBS News, \u201cit 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.\u201d Murray\u2019s unprompted reaction is further proof of this, and the fact that art can mean different things to different people.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re 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.\n<\/p>\n 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. Photo: Art Institute of Chicago via Wikimedia Commons<\/a> (Public domain)<\/p>\n Watch Murray explain his personal story with this painting:<\/p>\n Sources: How an 1884 painting at Chicago’s Art Institute saved Bill Murray’s life<\/a>; The Song of the Lark at the Art Institute of Chicago<\/a> Jitish Kallat\u2019s Staircase Installation Transforms the Art Institute of Chicago<\/a><\/p>\n The Art Institute of Chicago Will Return a 12th-Century Buddha Sculpture to Nepal<\/a><\/p>\n Art Institute of Chicago Receives Monumental Donation of French Masterpieces<\/a><\/p>\n
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