The Song of the Lark (Jules Breton)
{{Short description|Painting by Jules Breton}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2024}}
{{Infobox artwork
| title = The Song of the Lark
| painting_alignment =
| other_language_1 =
| other_title_1 =
| image = Jules Breton, le chant de l'alouette.1884.jpg
| image_upright = 1.2
| alt =
| caption =
| artist = Jules Breton
| year = {{start date|1884}}
| completion_date =
| catalogue =
| medium = Oil on canvas
| movement =
| height_metric = 110.6
| width_metric = 85.8
| length_metric =
| diameter_metric =
| height_imperial = 43.5
| width_imperial = 33.75
| length_imperial =
| diameter_imperial =
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| metric_unit = cm
| imperial_unit = in
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| museum = Art Institute of Chicago
| city = Chicago
| accession = 1894.1033
| website = {{URL|https://www.artic.edu/artworks/94841/the-song-of-the-lark}}
}}
The Song of the Lark is an 1884 oil on canvas painting by French naturalist artist Jules Breton.
Description and history
The painting shows a peasant farm girl walking in a field transfixed, listening to birdsong at dawn. It was first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1885. Since 1894, it has been part of the Henry Field Memorial Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago,{{Cite web |date=1884 |title=The Song of the Lark |url=https://www.artic.edu/artworks/94841/the-song-of-the-lark |website=Art Institute of Chicago |access-date=2024-02-07}} a collection of oil paintings that had been owned by the late Henry Field. In 1893, Field's widow, Florence, had established a trust for the purposes of loaning this collection of 44 oil paintings to the museum. On May 26, 1916, she outright gifted the entire collection to the museum.{{cite book |last1=Funigiello |first1=Philip J. |title=Florence Lathrop Page: A Biography |date=1994 |publisher=University of Virginia Press |page=34–35 |isbn=978-0-8139-1489-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=haEp59v_0UIC |access-date=12 May 2021 |language=en}}
In popular culture
At the Century of Progress, the 1934 Chicago World's Fair, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt unveiled The Song of the Lark as the winner of the Chicago Daily News contest to find the "most beloved work of art in America". She also declared it her personal favorite painting,{{Cite web |url=https://www.facebook.com/artic/posts/10156424373413150?comment_id=10156424813193150 |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/iarchive/facebook/17179183149/10156424373413150 |archive-date=26 February 2022 |date=July 13, 2018 |url-access=limited |title=Facebook page of Art Institute of Chicago |website=Facebook}}{{cbignore}} saying "At this moment The Song of the Lark had come to represent the popular American artistic taste on a national level."{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_2sxBwAAQBAJ&q=Eleanor+Roosevelt%E2%80%99s+Jules+Breton&pg=PA48 |title=A Seamless Web: Transatlantic Art in the Nineteenth Century |date=17 March 2014 |isbn=978-1-4438-5747-5 |editor1-last=May |editor1-first=Cheryll |editor2-last=Wardle |editor2-first=Marian |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing}}
Willa Cather's 1915 novel The Song of the Lark takes its name from the painting, which is also used as the novel's cover art.
In Thomas Wolfe's 1929 novel Look Homeward, Angel, the protagonist Eugene Gant wins a prize for writing an essay on the painting.
In February 2014, actor Bill Murray said at a press event for the film, The Monuments Men, that a chance encounter early in his career with The Song of the Lark at the Art Institute of Chicago dissuaded him from committing suicide.{{YouTube|8eOIcWB7jSA}}{{cite news |first=Marie |last=Saavedra |title=How an 1884 painting at Chicago's Art Institute saved Bill Murray's life |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/chicago/news/bill-murray-chicago-painting/ |work=CBS Chicago |date=October 29, 2024 |access-date=October 31, 2024}}
References
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Category:Paintings by Jules Breton
Category:Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago
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