Conceptismo (literally, conceptism) is a literary movement of the Baroque period of Portuguese and Spanish literature. It began in the late 16th century and lasted through the 17th century, also the period of the Spanish Golden Age.

Conceptismo is characterized by a rapid rhythm, directness, simple vocabulary, witty metaphors, and wordplay. In this style, multiple meanings are conveyed in a very concise manner, and conceptual intricacies are emphasised over elaborate vocabulary.

    Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas,

"Lies on this cold land,

worthy of all aging,

The old one whose praise

So many feathers deserved.

She did not want in heaven to enter

to enjoy the stars,

for not being between maiden

That she could not stain."

                                           Francisco de Quevedo

Conceptismo contrasts starkly with culteranismo, another movement of the Baroque period, which is characterized by ostentatious vocabulary, complex syntactical order, multiple, complicated metaphors, but highly conventional content.

To rephrase, where conceptismo values few words with high significance, culteranismo values elaborate vocabulary with relative significance. They both are concerned with what Baltasar Gracian identified as the value of the difficulty of language.

Culteranismo is characterized by an ornamental, ostentatious vocabulary and a message that is complicated by a heavy use of metaphors and complex syntactical order. The name blends culto ("cultivated") and luteranismo ("Lutheranism") and was coined by its opponents to present it as a heresy of "true" poetry.

    Luis de Gongora 1622. Portrait by Diego Velázquez.

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez - 1599 - 1660 was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period (c. 1600-1750). He began to paint in a precise tenebrist style, later developing a freer manner characterized by bold brushwork. In addition to numerous renditions of scenes of historical and cultural significance.

Velázquez's artwork became a model for 19th-century realist and impressionist painters. In the 20th century, artists such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, and Francis Bacon paid tribute to Velázquez by re-interpreting some of his most iconic images.

Chiaroscuro is one of the canonical painting modes of the Renaissance. Artists known for using the technique include:

Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Vermeer and Goya.

Tenebrism, from Italian tenebroso ("dark, gloomy, mysterious"), is a style of painting using especially pronounced chiaroscuro, where there are high contrasts of light and dark, and where darkness becomes a dominating feature of the image. The technique was developed to add drama to an image through a spotlight effect, and is common in Baroque paintings. Tenebrism is used only to obtain a dramatic impact while chiaroscuro is a broader term, also covering the use of less extreme contrasts of light to enhance the illusion of three-dimensionality.

    Self portrait by: Diego Velazquez.