tenebrism

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

n.1959, from tenebroso (1886), from Italian tenebroso “dark,” from Latin tenebrosus, from tenebrae “darkness” (see temerity).