A picturesque, imitation-gaucho literature, purporting to use the language of the gauchos an reflect their mentality, arose in the 1870s as a result of a developing evolution in the understanding of national identity. The three great figures in this trend, José Hernández, Estanislao del Campo and Hilario Ascasubi immediately became, and have remained, among the most popular figures of a whole unique genre in Argentine and Uruguayan literature, the gauchesco or "gauchoesque" style.