Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio (, , ; 28 September 1571 – 18 July 1610) was an Italian painter active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily from the early 1590s to 1610. His paintings combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, which had a formative influence on Baroque painting.
Carlo Saraceni
When Caravaggio's notorious "Death of the Virgin" was rejected in 1606 as an altarpiece suitable for a chapel of Santa Maria della Scala, it was Saraceni who provided the acceptable substitute, which remains "in situ", the only securely dated painting of his first decade in Rome. He was influenced by Caravaggio's dramatic lighting, monumental figures, naturalistic detail, and momentary action ("illustration, right"), so that he is numbered among the first of the "tenebrists" or "Caravaggisti". Examples of this style can be seen in the candlelit "Judith with the Head of Holofernes".