Gerardo Murillo Cornado, was the real name of the artist known as Dr. Atl. He was an avid researcher of nature, and he is considered to be the ideologist of the Muralist Movement, since he imposed a style that was later absorbed by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco, José Chávez Morado, among other renowned artists.
Atl began his studies in art at the workshop of Felipe Castro and finished at the Academy of San Carlos. In addition to his penchant to the plastic arts, he became interested in literature, and wrote stories, novels, poetry and even wrote his own biography Profane People in the convent [Gentes profanes en el convento], 1950, in which he described his passion for nature as well as the Mexican landscape: nothing has ever provoked in me a feeling as as deep as walking for three or four days to reach the high slopes of a mountain, settle amongst them in a cave or in a makeshift hut, and draw pleasantly as nature appeared before my eyes.
From his travels through the mountains and volcanoes of Mexico he took inspiration for his paintings such as Sunlight between the Mountains [Rayos de sol entre la sierra], where he found the telluric force for expressive landscape validating it through color and violent strokes, which would become the guidelines for modern painting in Mexico. The study of these new insights led him to create the technique called aeropaisaje or which consists in the reproduction of full views taken from a helicopter where he made his reconnaissance trips.