Sprezzatura* Medium Pushing to Its Limits* Bellflower style*

American bellflower (campanula americana) 

 

Brian Eno, 1995:

Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8bit — all these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided.

It’s the sound of failure: so much of modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.

Sprezzatura ([sprettsaˈtuːra]) Wikipedia

 is an Italian word that refers to a kind of effortless grace, the art of making something difficult look easy, or maintaining a nonchalant demeanor while performing complex tasks.

The term "sprezzatura" first appeared in Baldassare Castiglione's 1528 The Book of the Courtier, where it is defined by the author as "a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it".^[1] It is the ability of the courtier to display "an easy facility in accomplishing difficult actions which hides the conscious effort that went into them".^[2] Sprezzatura has also been described "as a form of defensive irony: the ability to disguise what one really desires, feels, thinks, and means or intends behind a mask of apparent reticence and nonchalance".^[3]

The word has entered the English language; the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as "studied carelessness",^[4] especially as a characteristic quality or style of art or literature.  

Bellflower Style*

Yes, you are seeing part of the pistil. Specifically, that long curved tube is the style, which is the middle section of the female reproductive organ. 

In many bellflower species—most famously the tall bellflower (Campanulastrum americanum)—the style grows exceptionally long and dramatically curves downward and away from the flower to prevent self-pollination. 

How the Bellflower Style Works

Bellflowers utilize a fascinating reproductive strategy called protandry, meaning the male parts mature before the female parts. [1]

• The Tube Structure: The long tube is the style, which elevates the stigma (the pollen-receptive tip) far outside the colorful petals. [1, 2]
• The Pollen Brush: When the bellflower first opens, the style is actually covered in hairs that collect pollen from its own male stamens. Insects brush against this long tube to gather pollen and carry it to other flowers. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
• The Final Unfurling: Once the flower has shed all its pollen, the very tip of that curved tube (the stigma) splits open into three distinct curled lobes. These lobes open up to receive pollen brought by insects from younger bellflowers. [1, 2, 4]