The idea of the Northeast region was crystallized in the first half of the 20th century through essayists (Gilberto Freyre) and fiction writers (José Lins do Rego). In the visual arts, like in literature and music, artists of the likes of Lula Cardoso Ayres, Vicente do Rego Monteiro, Cícero Dias, Caribé, Aldemir Martins help to build the pictorial tradition of the region, strongly based on figuration, chromatic exuberance, or dramatic representation of an aggressive reality.