Tenebrism (from Latin 'tenebrae': darkness) is an intensification of chiaroscuro in which darkness dominates the canvas and figures are lit by a single, dramatic source — often appearing to emerge from impenetrable black. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio essentially invented it in Rome around 1595, and the influence was immediate and continent-wide. Spanish painters — Ribera, Zurbarán, the young Velázquez — adopted it enthusiastically. So did the Utrecht Caravaggists in the Netherlands, bringing the style north where it met Rembrandt. Tenebrism suited the Counter-Reformation's taste for emotional intensity and direct engagement with the viewer. It also perfectly captured the theatricality of religious narrative: a spotlight on suffering, a darkness surrounding everything else. Modern photographers working in black-and-white have often unknowingly reinvented it.