Chiaroscuro

From the Italian for "light-dark" — the use of strong contrast between light and shadow to model form and create drama, most associated with Caravaggio and his followers.

Chiaroscuro existed before the Baroque — Leonardo used it to soften edges — but Caravaggio pushed it to an extreme in the 1590s and 1600s, plunging most of a canvas into near-total darkness and letting a single implied light source carve figures out of it. The technique spread rapidly through Europe via painters known as the Caravaggisti, including Artemisia Gentileschi, Gerrit van Honthorst, and, in a more restrained form, Rembrandt.

Beyond its visual drama, chiaroscuro does real narrative work: by controlling exactly what is lit and what isn't, a painter directs the viewer's eye and can isolate a single gesture or expression as the emotional center of the composition.