Calling of Saint Matthew Caravaggio, 1600
John the Baptist in the Wilderness Caravaggio, 1604
Judith Cutting Off the Head of Holofernes Trophime Bigot, 1640
The Agony in the Garden El Greco, 1590 – 1595
When you take the dramatic contrast of light and shadow known as chiaroscuro to a wild, violent extreme—that’s tenebrism. From the Italian tenebroso, meaning ‘dark, mysterious’ Tenebrism became a fixation for artists during the Baroque period. The distinctive ‘spolight’ look appears in work by El Greco, Tintoretto and Dürer, but it was Caravaggio that made it canon.
