What Is Tenebrism?
Tenebrism is a technique of painting. It evolved from chiaroscuro, which focuses on painting gradations in light and dark to produce a richly tonal painting, usually used for figurative works. Tenebrism takes this process a step further, and calls for extreme contrasts between light and dark. Often, candlelight was used to light the figures, and there would be only one source of light. The French Baroque painter Georges de la Tour (1593-1652) employed the idea heavily. He often painted single figures working by candlelight. The effect is extremely dramatic. Using the method, de La Tour replaced the more obvious religious symbolism that had appeared in earlier more traditional paintings. Spirituality is instead expressed through the light and darks in the folds of a garment or on a person’s face. In addition to de la Tour, other artists to use the method were Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Delacroix.
