Better known by his pseudonym Dr. Atl, Gerardo Murillo was a painter who possessed his own particular political ideology, at times radical, which led him to actively participate in the Mexican Revolution and in strikes, demands and rallies which involved both painters and workers. Nevertheless, this enthusiasm and commitment did not overflow into his pictures, which can be understood by the stylistic development of the genre of landscapes, influenced by the European modernism of his teacher, the Italian-Brazilian Félix Bernardelli. With the support of the Porfirio Díaz regime, he traveled to Europe and wandered around the various "isms" experimenting with pointillism, divisionism, Japonisms and the style of the Näbis. During the thirties, at his full artistic maturity, he produced his gradiose concept of Mexican landscapes, always characterized by the broad vistas around the Valley of Mexico and its surroundings, betwenn snow-capped mountains and cumulous clouds, transparent light in diaphanous sunny days.

Cf. Dr. Atl. El paisaje como pasión (Landscape as a Passion). Mexico, Fondo Editorial de la Plástica Mexicana, 1994.