A lone peasant girl pauses her work to listen to a lark singing in the distance. Her emotional response to this moment of natural beauty is accentuated by the glow of the sun rising behind her, suffusing the landscape with golden light.<\/p>\n
Jules 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.<\/p>\n","short_description":"This painting by Jules Adolphe Breton was among the first to enter the Art Institute's collection when the museum opened in 1893. It quickly became one of the most popular paintings at the museum. By the 1920s, reproductions were hanging on classroom walls across the United States. In 1934, it was named \u201cAmerica\u2019s Best Loved Picture\u201d in a contest sponsored by the Chicago Daily News<\/em>.","dimensions":"110.6 \u00d7 85.8 cm (43 1\/2 \u00d7 33 3\/4 in.); Framed: 142.3 \u00d7 116.9 cm (56 \u00d7 46 in.)","dimensions_detail":[{"depth":null,"width":85,"height":110,"diameter":null,"clarification":null},{"depth":null,"width":116,"height":142,"diameter":null,"clarification":"Framed"}],"medium_display":"Oil on canvas","inscriptions":"Inscribed lower left: Jules Breton \/ Courrieres 1884","credit_line":"Henry Field Memorial Collection","catalogue_display":null,"publication_history":"\u201cDrift of the Dog Days,\u201d The Collector 4, 16 (1893), p. 247.\n\n\u201cArt Institute of Chicago: II \u2013 Modern Paintings: The Henry Field Collection,\u201d Art Amateur 21, 1 (1894), p. 19. \n\n\u201cThe Henry Field Memorial Collection,\u201d Art Amateur 31, 6 (1894), p. 115. \n\nRoger Marx, \u201cLe Salon de 1885,\u201d Le Voltaire (May 1, 1885), p. 1.\n\nJ. Noulens, \u201cLe Salon de 1885,\u201d La Presse (May 1, 1885), p. 3.\n\n\"Pictures at the Salon,\" New York Times (May 18, 1885), p. 2.\n\nHenry Havard, \u201cLe Salon,\u201d Le Si\u00e8cle (May 19, 1885), p. 1.\n\nMario Porth, \u201cVoyage au pays des peintres,\u201d Le Reveil (May 23, 1885), p. 2. \n\nHenry Fouquier, \u201cLe Salon de 1885,\u201d Le Dix-neuvi\u00e8me si\u00e8cle (May 26, 1885), p. 2.\n\nHerni Chantavoine, \u201cLe Salon de 1855,\u201d La Nouvelle Revue 34 (May 1885), pp. 591-92.\n\nAndr\u00e9 Michel, \u201cLe Salon de 1885,\u201d Gazette des Beaux-Arts ser. 2, 31 (June 1885), p. 490.\n\nG. Dumas, Catalogue illustr\u00e9 du Salon (Paris, 1885), cat. 369.\n\nHenry Havard, Salon de 1885 (Paris, 1885), p. 44.\n\nCharles Ponsonaille, \u201cLe Salon de 1885,\u201d L\u2019Artiste 1 (1885), pp. 347-8.\n\nTh\u00e9odore V\u00e9ron, Dictionnaire V\u00e9ron (Paris, 1885), p. 88.\n\nWilliam M. R. French, \u201cThe Permanent Collections in the Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago,\u201d Brush and Pencil 1, 4 (1898), pp. 81, 84 (ill.). \n\nBrush and Pencil 3 (1898), p. 287 (ill.).\n\n\u201cChicago, ILL.: The Art Institute of Chicago,\u201d in American Art Annual 1898 (London, 1899), p. 140, no. 1.\n\nMarius Vachon, Jules Breton (Paris, 1899), pp. 129, 145.\n\nFrederick Clifton Pierce, Field Genealogy, vol. 2 (Chicago: Hammond Press, 1901), pp. 709, 711, no. 1 (ill.). \n\nF. E. Cluit, \u201cThe Art of Jules Breton,\u201d Brush and Pencil 18 (1906), p. 108 (ill.).\n\nThe Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Chicago, 1925), p. 58 (ill.).\n\nVincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh to His Brother vol. 2 (1927), p. 488.\n\nHave You Seen America\u2019s Best Loved Picture \u2018The Song of the Lark\u2019? (Chicago, 1934), n.p., ill.\t\n\nLos Angeles Art Bulletin (March, 1935), ill.\n\nCharles Fabens Kelley, \u201cChicago: Record Years,\u201d The Art News 51, 4 (1952), p. 106.\n\nThe Art Institute of Chicago, A Brief Guide to the Collections (Chicago, 1956), p. 33.\n\nThe Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago, 1961), p. 58.\n\nFrederick A. Sweet, \u201cGreat Chicago Collectors,\u201d Apollo 84 (September 1966), pp. 190-91, fig. 3. \n\nJohn Maxon, The Art Institute of Chicago (New York, 1970), pp. 90-94.\n\nMichael Quick, \u201cHomer in Virginia,\u201d Los Angeles County Museum of Art Bulletin 26 (1978), pp. 76, 78, 81, fig. 29.\n\nRichard Brettell, French Salon Artists 1800-1900 (Chicago, 1987), pp. 106-109 (ill.), 117. \n\nLinda Nochlin, \u201cWomen, Art, and Power,\u201d in Visual Theory: Painting and Interpretation (New York, 1991), p. 30.\n\nMaureen Ryan, \u201cThe Peasant\u2019s Bonds to Gaul, God, Land and Nature: The Myth of the Rural and Jules Breton\u2019s Le Chant de l\u2019alouette,\u201d RACAR Revue d\u2019art canadienne\/Canadian Art Review 19, 1-2 (1992), pp. 79-96, fig. 1.\n\nStephen Eskilson, \u201cContesting the Canon(s): \u2018The Song of the Lark\u2019 and the Art Institute of Chicago,\u201d Journal of the History of Collections 15, 2 (2003), pp. 257-265, fig. 1. \n\nJanis P. Stout, \u201c\u2018The Nude Had Descended the Staircase\u2019: Katherine Anne Porter Looks at Willa Cather Looking at Modern Art,\u201d in Sarah Cheney Watson and Ann Moseley, eds., Willa Cather and Aestheticism: From Romanticism to Modernism (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press and Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012), p. 160.\n\nClarisse Fava-Piz and Nerina Santorius, The Honest Eye: Camille Pissarro's Impressionism, exh. cat. (Munich; London; New York: Prestel, 2025), 37, 38 fig. 6.","exhibition_history":"Paris, Salon, 1885, cat. 369.\n\nChicago, Worlds Columbian Exhibition: Loan Collection: Foreign Masterpieces Owned in the United States, 1893, no. 3047. \n\nHartford, Wadsworth Atheneum, An Exhibition of Literature and Poetry in Painting Since 1850, January-February, 1933, cat. 8 (ill.). \n\nLos Angeles Art Association, The Song of the Lark by Jules Breton Lent by the Art Institute of Chicago, March 1935, no cat. \n\nDallas, Museum of Fine Arts, June 1935, no cat. \n\nColorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Gay Nineties Exhibition, Fall 1950.\n\nDenver Art Museum, Spring Quarterly Exhibition: Man at Work, March 2-April 27, 1952, no cat.\n\nLos Angeles, Municipal Art Gallery, Old Favorites Revisited, October 6-November 8, 1959. \n\nMuskegon, Hackley Art Gallery, November 1-30, 1955. \n\nWashington, DC, National Collection of Fine Arts (Smithsonian Institution), American Art in the Barbizon Mood, January 23-April 20, 1975, cat. 1 (ill.). \n\nOmaha, Joslyn Art Museum, Jules Breton and the French Rural Tradition, November 6, 1982-January 2, 1983, cat. 39 (ill.), traveled to Memphis, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, January 16-March 6, 1983 and Williamstown, Sterling and Francine Clark Institute, April 2-June 5, 1983.\n\nTokyo, Seibu Museum of Art, The Impressionist Tradition: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago, October 18-December 17, 1985 cat. 12 (ill.), traveled to Fukuoka Art Museum, January 5-February 2, 1986 and Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, March 4-April 13, 1986. \n\nNorfolk, Va., Chrysler Museum, Paris 1889: American Artists at the Universal Exposition, September 29-December 17, 1989, no cat. no. (ill.); Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts, February 1-April 15, 1990; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, May 6-July 15; New York Historical Society, September 5-November 15, 1990. \n\nThe Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago\u2019s Dream A World\u2019s Treasure: The Art Institute of Chicago 1893-1993, November 1-January 9, 1994, no cat. no., figs. 10, 11, pl. 5. \n\nNiigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Masterworks of Modern Art from The Art Institute of Chicago, April 20-May 29, 1994, cat. 10 (ill.), traveled to Nagoya, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, June 10-July 1994 and Yokohama Museum of Art, August 6-September 25, 1994. \n\nYamanahsi Prefectural Museum, Return to Nature: J.F. Millet, the Barbizon Artists, and the Renewal of the Rural Tradition, September 26-December 12, 1998, cat. VI-6 (ill.). \n\nMus\u00e9e des Beaux-Arts d'Arras, Jules Breton: La chanson des bl\u00e9s, March 16-June 2, 2002, cat. 95 (ill.), traveled to Quimper, France, Mus\u00e9e des Beaux-Arts, June 15-September 8, 2002 and Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, September 23-December 15, 2002, fig. 175 (cat. 95).\n\nChicago, David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, Looking and Listening in Nineteenth-Century France, November 6, 2007\u2014March 23, 2008, no. 4 (ill.), fig. 37.\n\nLincoln, Nebraska, Sheldon Museum of Art, Visual Cather: The Writer's Pictorial Imagination, May 19-August 30, 2015, no cat.\n\nWorcester, Worcester Art Museum, Coming Away: Winslow Homer in England, November 11, 2018-February 4, 2018 and Milwaukee, Milwaukee Art Museum, March 1-May 20, 2018.","provenance_text":"Bought from the artist by George A. Lucas, Paris, for Samuel P. Avery in 1885 [this and the following information according to Omaha 1982-83]; sold to Henry Field (died 1890), Chicago, 1885; by descent to his wife, Mrs. Florence Lathrop Field; transferred to the Art Institute in October 1894; given to the Art Institute, 1916.","edition":null,"publishing_verification_level":"Web Cataloged","internal_department_id":14,"fiscal_year":1917,"fiscal_year_deaccession":null,"is_public_domain":true,"is_zoomable":true,"max_zoom_window_size":-1,"copyright_notice":null,"has_multimedia_resources":true,"has_educational_resources":false,"has_advanced_imaging":false,"colorfulness":30.922,"color":{"h":5,"l":67,"s":94,"percentage":0.0011949300205527963,"population":11},"latitude":41.8798829941714,"longitude":-87.6234423938481,"latlon":"41.879882994171,-87.623442393848","is_on_view":true,"on_loan_display":null,"gallery_title":"Gallery 222","gallery_id":2147483607,"nomisma_id":null,"artwork_type_title":"Painting","artwork_type_id":1,"department_title":"Painting and Sculpture of Europe","department_id":"PC-10","artist_id":33753,"artist_title":"Jules Breton","alt_artist_ids":[],"artist_ids":[33753],"artist_titles":["Jules Breton"],"category_ids":["PC-10"],"category_titles":["Painting and Sculpture of Europe"],"term_titles":["oil on canvas","oil paint (paint)","oil painting","19th century","woman","sky","horizon","landscape","rural life","french","oil paintings (visual works)","paint","canvas","paint","painting","painting","painting (image making)","painting techniques","bird","farm","field","girl","labor","peasants","sun","sunrises","painting","european painting"],"style_id":"TM-13203","style_title":"19th century","alt_style_ids":[],"style_ids":["TM-13203"],"style_titles":["19th century"],"classification_id":"TM-66","classification_title":"oil on canvas","alt_classification_ids":["TM-14976","TM-78","TM-10387","TM-9","TM-54"],"classification_ids":["TM-66","TM-14976","TM-78","TM-10387","TM-9","TM-54"],"classification_titles":["oil on canvas","french","oil paintings (visual works)","paint","painting","european painting"],"subject_id":"TM-13813","alt_subject_ids":["TM-12468","TM-14902","TM-14145","TM-12814","TM-13572","TM-15559","TM-15084","TM-15436","TM-12464","TM-9129","TM-13682","TM-12883"],"subject_ids":["TM-13813","TM-12468","TM-14902","TM-14145","TM-12814","TM-13572","TM-15559","TM-15084","TM-15436","TM-12464","TM-9129","TM-13682","TM-12883"],"subject_titles":["woman","sky","horizon","landscape","rural life","bird","farm","field","girl","labor","peasants","sun","sunrises"],"material_id":"TM-2451","alt_material_ids":["TM-3124","TM-2577","TM-13502"],"material_ids":["TM-2451","TM-3124","TM-2577","TM-13502"],"material_titles":["oil paint (paint)","canvas","paint","painting"],"technique_id":"TM-4273","alt_technique_ids":["TM-14210","TM-3891","TM-3971"],"technique_ids":["TM-4273","TM-14210","TM-3891","TM-3971"],"technique_titles":["oil painting","painting","painting (image making)","painting techniques"],"theme_titles":[],"image_id":"48b2de88-ba73-8e19-f448-d1cef4a1c847","alt_image_ids":["725312b2-22b4-3f90-94b1-30b926860b60"],"document_ids":["49fe2e30-c792-11ea-7750-082f2e9bfc2d"],"sound_ids":["49fe2e30-c792-11ea-7750-082f2e9bfc2d"],"video_ids":[],"text_ids":[],"section_ids":[],"section_titles":[],"site_ids":[],"suggest_autocomplete_all":[{"input":["1894.1033"],"contexts":{"groupings":["accession"]}},{"input":["The Song of the Lark"],"weight":101654,"contexts":{"groupings":["title"]}}],"source_updated_at":"2026-08-07T16:11:28-05:00","updated_at":"2026-09-01T19:20:43-05:00","timestamp":"2026-09-06T05:47:31-05:00"},"info":{"license_text":"The `description` field in this response is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Generic License (CC-By) and the Terms and Conditions of artic.edu. All other data in this response is licensed under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) 1.0 designation and the Terms and Conditions of artic.edu.","license_links":["https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/zero\/1.0\/","https:\/\/www.artic.edu\/terms"],"version":"1.15"},"config":{"iiif_url":"https:\/\/www.artic.edu\/iiif\/2","website_url":"http:\/\/www.artic.edu"}}