tenebrism

/ ˈtɛnəˌbrɪzəm /

noun

1. sometimes capital a school, style, or method of painting, adopted chiefly by 17th-century Spanish and Neapolitan painters, esp Caravaggio, characterized by large areas of dark colours, usually relieved with a shaft of light

Derived Forms

• ˈtenebrist, nounadjective

Example Sentences

Ripley’s fascination with Caravaggio allowed the Italian master’s famed tenebrism — intense darkness and pockets of equally intense light — to also become a guiding aesthetic for Elswit.

From Los Angeles Times

He made a speciality of what Graham-Dixon calls "tenebrism", and fully nine-tenths of his Resurrection of Lazarus is as black as pitch or perdition.

From The Guardian

No, he had to admit, he was not having nightmares about the women he cared for—and he cared for them all with these two specially mixing in himself as paint, their pleasures and sorrows his tenebrism.

From Project Gutenberg