Which Baroque painter is famous for using tenebrism?

Which Baroque painter is famous for using tenebrism? Caravaggio is the canonical answer.

Tenebrism is a dramatic lighting method in which intensely illuminated figures or objects emerge from a predominantly black or very dark background. Caravaggio made the effect central to his mature style, using it to focus attention, heighten emotion, and make sacred scenes feel physically immediate.

Born Michelangelo Merisi in 1571, Caravaggio worked mainly in Milan, Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily. Paintings such as The Calling of Saint Matthew and Judith Beheading Holofernes show his characteristic spotlight-like illumination and abrupt transitions from light to darkness. His naturalistic models and unsentimental expressions were as influential as his lighting.

A common mix-up is treating tenebrism as simply another name for chiaroscuro. The terms overlap: both concern contrasts of light and shade, but tenebrism generally means a more extreme, enveloping darkness. Other painters, including Rembrandt and Georges de La Tour, also used strong shadow, but Caravaggio is the standard single-answer association in Baroque-art quizzes.