Peng Energy as Swiss Ball in Pool

Sifu Ken Gullette gives an explanation of Peng Energy, one of the most important skills in the internal arts of T'ai Chi, Hsing-I and Bagua. Combined with the ground path, it is essential to maintain Peng at all times and throughout every movement. Sometimes, Peng Jin is called "Ward Off," but that is too simple.

I like the Swiss Ball in the pool analogy, as our body has to have an unshakable resilience or bounciness in self defense.  You root yourself, but your root is alive and agile, not stationary or stiff, and the Peng energy you release comes from your root and is directed from the waist.

The Song of Peng (4)

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Even if the opponent uses a thousand pounds of force,
he can be uprooted and made to float without difficulty.

Reference: Songs of the Eight Postures, by T'an Meng-hsien.

The Song of Peng (3)

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The entire body is filled with springlike energy,
opening and closing in a very quick moment.

Reference: Songs of the Eight Postures, by T'an Meng-hsien.

The Song of Peng (2)

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First sink the ch'i to the tan t'ien,
then hold the head as if suspended from above.

Reference: Songs of the Eight Postures, by T'an Meng-hsien.

The Song of Peng (1)

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What is the meaning of Peng energy?
It is like the water supporting a moving boat.

Reference: Songs of the Eight Postures, by T'an Meng-hsien (cf. Peng Jin - Internal Strength for Tai Chi, Hsing-I and Bagua).  

T'ai Chi Helps Breast Cancer Survivors

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Dr. [Michael] Irwin [with the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center] claims in the study that T'ai Chi was effective for reducing inflammation in breast cancer patients who have insomnia following diagnosis and treatment.

"We saw that T'ai Chi reversed cellular inflammation, by producing a down-regulation of the genes that lead to inflammation. T'ai Chi is a movement meditation, and we have found that similar anti-inflammatory effects occur when people practice other forms of meditation."

Reference:  Can T'ai Chi reduce inflammation for breast cancer survivors? 

T'ai Chi for Health and Beauty

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Besides your community center or local college, check nearby hospitals and clinics for T'ai Chi programs.  If you have a medical condition, ask your physician if T'ai Chi can help.

T'ai Chi Benefits as We Age

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T'ai Chi is a relaxing, gentle exercise, that is physically rigorous and benefits our health in numerous ways.  We can do other activities and exercises, of course, but T'ai Chi is an ideal addition to our regiment, especially as we get older.

T'ai Chi is Yin-Yang Balance

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The say that Wu Chi is the mother of all things, and the mother of all things gives rise to T'ai Chi, where yin and yang separate, and play, and harmonize. 

T'ai Chi is a Martial Art

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T'ai Chi is truly benevolent and peaceful, yet it is also concentrated and determined, and no less a fighting art than Kung Fu, Karate or Tae Kwon Do.  Each movement can, and does, have any number of self defense applications.  No, of course, you don't move slowly, if you're called upon to defend yourself.  But, just as Bruce Lee emphasized in Jeet Kune Do, you move with economy of effort and abide by principles of calm and centering.  If you need to move quickly, therefore, move quickly.  If not, then don't.

T'ai Chi is the Way of Nature (Tao)

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T'ai Chi abides by the teachings of Lao Tzu in Tao Te Ching.  Whether we practice its application, reflect on its philosophy, or raise our spirit to the Universal, following the Tao is a crucial precept.

T'ai Chi is Swimming in Air

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Early on I also learned that T'ai Chi was like swimming in air.  That is, in practice, we are to move slowly and imagine that we are underwater.  Our movement is smooth and unhurried.  The more we fight the water, that is, if we veer from T'ai Chi principles, the more the water resists our force and tension.  So swimming in air was also a call to center and relax.

T'ai Chi is Meditation in Motion

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I learned early on that T'ai Chi was like meditation in motion.  I took this to mean that whatever state we gained from sitting meditation, we worked at sustaining throughout the practice.  For me, this notion was the foundation of bringing T'ai Chi in our everyday life, that is, that calm, that centering, and that mindfulness. 

Jet Li Introduces Levels 2 and 3

Pull Down, Split, Elbow Stroke, and Release Shoulder

Advance, Retreat, Gaze to the Left, Look to the Right, and Central Equilibrium

These nine kinetic concepts, plus the four from Level 1, constitute the 13 Postures (cf. T'ai Chi Empower - 13 Postures).

T'ai Chi Meditation: Mind and Body

Meditation Lesson 1: Be involved, be productive, be connected. But step back, too. Meditate, and simply observe.

Meditation Lesson 2: How well does your mind focus in meditation, and how do you bring it back when it wanders? 

Peng, Lu, Ji and An: Review and Practice

Lesson 16 (brief review): Peng (expanding) | Lu (deflecting) | Ji (pressing) | An (pushing) energy... all together.

Lesson 16 (daily practice): Peng (expanding) | Lu (deflecting) | Ji (pressing) | An (pushing) energy.

An (Push) is Pushing Energy

Lesson 13: After sinking and gathering energy, Push releases energy in an upward, uprooting movement.

Lesson 14: "When applied [Push] flows like water - hardness and strength concealed in gentleness."

Lesson 15: To uproot your partner with Push, make sure your own root is... rooted.

Ji (Press) is Pressing Energy

Lesson 10: Done in a flow, Press stores energy in the waist, then releases it via arms and shoulders.

Lesson 11: T'ai Chi is about practice, practice, and practice on a daily basis.

Lesson 12: The power behind Press comes from the spiraling arms, turning waist, and rooting to the ground.

Lu (Roll Back) is Deflecting Energy

Lesson 7: Lu is about keeping your center of mass downward, and turning from your waist.

Lesson 8: The Classics say to use four ounces to deflect a thousand pounds. That's Lu.

Lesson 9: Use adhering energy to deflect your opponent downward and to the side.

Peng (Ward Off) is Expanding Energy

Lesson 1: "Péng is an energy [that] pushes out in all directions to create a protective buffer around the core."

Lesson 3: This clip is for practicing, and consolidating, Lessons 1 and 2.

Lesson 5: The rounded arms and back - circles within circles - are a key to deflecting force.
 

Two-Person Practice in T'ai Chi

Two-person practice in T'ai Chi may be like sparring in other martial arts.  The important thing to keep in mind is that you're working together to challenge and strengthen each other.  You follow T'ai Chi principles, as you would with other postures or movements. 

Hollowing Chest, Rounding Back

This principle is about opening up your upper body, so the chi can circulate more freely throughout your body.  Consequently, you can move with greater speed and strength.

Suspending Body from the Crown

'Suspending the Body from the Crown of the Head'... connects the whole body to the heavens.

I'm not sure that Taiji Zen meant this to be Lesson 2, but I think it makes more sense as Lesson 1.  Whether in a standing posture or continuous movement, this is so fundamental to T'ai Chi.   It is important to raise our head as if a string were attached at the crown and suspended our head from directly above.  Besides aligning our body, it also opens our mind (i) and raises our spirit (shen).

Jet Li Introduces Level 1

Jet Li introduces Level 1 of Taiji Zen practice, and it covers 4 of the 13 essential postures and movements of T'ai Chi.  

These 4 postures and movements are called "Grasp Bird's Tail" in Yang Style forms

Taiji Zen has posted several lessons on Level 1, which I will cover over the next few weeks.

Jet Li and Jack Ma on Taiji Zen

I believe ancient Chinese culture has some simple wisdom to share with us: balance.

Jet Li is a well-known martial artist, actor and producer, while Jack Ma is the billionaire founder of Alibaba which recently had the largest Initial Public Offering.  Together they arrive at Taiji Zen.  The video lessons are clear and informative, and shot and scored deftly.

Jet Li introduces Taiji Zen, and welcomes us.

Art has Value

Preface

As Dr. Ron Art took sufficient shape for me to launch it via a Facebook page three years ago, I wanted to share my Art Manifesto.  This manifesto isn't just a set of beliefs about art, but also a proposal about the very nature of art.  Physicists work at discovering the immutable laws of the universe, and in a similar way I work at crystallizing some fundamental truths about art.  More broadly, art is an integral component of The Tripartite Model, along with science and religion.

My Art Manifesto

1. Art is cross-art by nature
2. Art is always autobiographical
3. Art is sensuous
4. Art is synesthetic
5. Art is never completely original
6. Art has value

Dr. Ron Art is a sizable complex with five main wings, under which several projects are at various stages of progress:

• Poetry in Multimedia 
• Shakespeare Talks! 
• Dramatis Personae 
• Art Intersections 
• T'ai Chi Empower

My Art Manifesto is the undercurrent for these projects.  This is the last of six articles, where I introduce this manifesto. 

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A talented artist friend

When I lived in Dubai, a Filipino friend invited me to his first solo exhibition.  His paintings were astounding, both in breadth (they were huge) and in theme (they were profound).  His creative talent wasn't narrowed to painting, but extended to photography, sculpting and performance.  At this exhibition, for instance, we all wondered where the hell he was.  Two hours into it, and he still hadn't shown up.  Then he arrived, wearing exactly what he wore in a sizable self portrait, including clown makeup, and pulling the same red wagon depicted in that photograph.  He was like the Pied Piper, as he snaked through the crowd, picking up odd things on the floor, and us opening up, making way for him, and regathering behind him to follow along.  It was a tour de force show.

I was equally astonished, however, at how much he low-balled the pricing of his pieces.  It was par for the course for a lot of Filipinos in Dubai, that they hardly saw their true worth and hardly demanded it.  They smiled at whatever pittance they received, because after all they were the happiest people in the world.  But being dead bottom on the salary scale in an Arabian Business survey was emblematic, I thought, of how people and companies took advantage of their low salary expectations and how Filipinos themselves reinforced it with their acceptance and passivity. 

On the face of it, my artist friend was the same.  So a few days later, I got together with him, and asked him point black: If someone were to offer him 10 - 20 times more than the pricing he had set for any of his pieces, would he accept it?  I was glad to hear his response:  yes.  I wanted to advocate for him and to serve as his talent agent, and his response suggested that we had something to work with.  Had he said no, instead, there would have been little reason for us to go forward.

Art as the royal road to wealth

Consider the following documentary on very expensive paintings:

If this documentary doesn't take your breath away, then you may have little or no breath to begin with.  Certainly each artist may dream of a multimillion dollar windfall for his or her art.  For the vast lot of us, however, eking a living out of what we love most is a daily struggle or an impractical option altogether.

But how to determine art value?

A few years ago I spoke to a German friend, who at the time was pursuing her PhD in marketing and focusing on pricing as a specialty.  I asked her how the value of art was determined.  We chatted a bit, but mostly she just sent me a wealth of articles on the subject.  Evidently art pricing wasn't something she had looked into, as she really wasn't able to advise me.

I gathered the following were pricing determinants:

• Talent and renown of the artist
• Promotion, sales and marketing efforts
• Historical, social and political context
• Art market trends for particular genres
• Whim, ego and wealth of the art aficionado-collector

Over time, as my thinking advances and my knowledge grows, I will elaborate on these and other determinants. 

Dr. Ron Art in perspective

It took a few years to clarify the concept, create the platform, and launch it in earnest.  So when I spoke to the foregoing friends, this wide-ranging endeavor was still in its infancy.  I wanted to create art and engage others, but I also wanted to promote, negotiate and sell it.  (a) I've been posting stuff in methodic fashion, across Google+, Twitter and Facebook, and (b) writing articles like mad across several Blogger, Tumblr and Pinterest profiles.  (c) Plus I am working on specific projects, at various stages of progress:

• Poetry in Multimedia.  Searching for a multimedia publisher for `The Song Poems
• Shakespeare Talks!  Staging `A Midsummer Night's Dream in the community
• Dramatis Personae.  Writing my play `The Room, as advocacy against housemaid abuse
• Art Intersections.  Planning my photography project `Real Beauty
• T'ai Chi Empower.  Teaching students and coaching leaders on T'ai Chi  

I'm not yet at the point of formulating the pricing for whatever I'm going to sell, but I'm getting there, for sure. I have struggled, admittedly, and that may continue, but for me there is little that is ennobling about struggling or suffering. I appreciate its inevitability, and I do my best to learn from it. But I plan to get past it and delve even more into art, and I plan to become wealthy at it.   

Art is simply not something to dish out for nothing.

Art is Never Completely Original

Preface

As Dr. Ron Art took sufficient shape for me to launch it via a Facebook page three years ago, I wanted to share my Art Manifesto.  This manifesto isn't just a set of beliefs about art, but also a proposal about the very nature of art.  Physicists work at discovering the immutable laws of the universe, and in a similar way I work at crystallizing some fundamental truths about art.  More broadly, art is an integral component of The Tripartite Model, along with science and religion.

My Art Manifesto

1. Art is cross-art by nature
2. Art is always autobiographical
3. Art is sensuous
4. Art is synesthetic
5. Art is never completely original
6. Art has value

Dr. Ron Art is a sizable complex with five main wings, under which several projects are at various stages of progress:

• Poetry in Multimedia 
• Shakespeare Talks! 
• Dramatis Personae 
• Art Intersections 
• T'ai Chi Empower

My Art Manifesto is the undercurrent for these projects.  This is the fifth of six articles, where I introduce this manifesto. 

The four points I've written about so far in my Art Manifesto - (a) art is cross-art by nature, (b) art is always autobiographical, (c) art is sensuous, and (d) art is synesthetic - came to me five years ago, but this fifth is a recent inclusion.  I crystallize it here.

We are all inviolably connected to each other, and we belong on long, billowing ribbons of life, since the beginning of life itself.  So while we may pull things together in a novel fashion, while we may take a radical leap of creativity, and while our work may strike others as duly original, the fact is we are never fully alone or isolated from others in the world.  Our art may be original to some extent, but never completely so. 

Literature

Consider the famous reflection by the English poet and cleric John Donne (Meditation XVII):

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.

American novelist Ernest Hemingway drew from Donne for the title From Whom the Bells Tolls.  William Shakespeare, Donne's contemporary in the late-16th, early-17th centuries, drew quite a bit from his predecessors, and they from their predecessors, too, for instance, for `Romeo and Juliet:

• The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke, and Palace of Pleasure by William Painter were primary sources. 
• In turn, for his narrative poem, Brooke may have translated the Italian novella Giuletta e Romeo by Matteo Bandello.
• There are characters named Reomeo Titensus and Juliet Bibleotet in the works by Pierre Boaistuau, who translated some of Bandello's novellas into French, such as Histoire troisieme de deux Amants, don't l'un mourut de venin, l'autre de tristesse (The third story of two lovers, one of whom died of poison, the other of sadness, rf. A Noise Within).
• One Bandello story was La sfortunata morte di dui infelicissimi amante che l'uno di veleno e l'atro di dolore morirono (The unfortunate death of two most wretched lovers, one of whom died of poison, the other, of grief, rf. A Noise Within).

So one of the most famous works in literature and theater follows quite a lineage of art.

Film

`Stoker is very stylish 2013 film by South Korean director Park Chan-wook, and in its simplest, most obvious theme it is about the coming of age of a young lady.  But it's more complex than that, and quite a lot move and shift in the interiors of this family.  The acting - led by Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode, and Nicole Kidman - is simply superb. 

For the purpose of this article, I want to highlight American film talent Wentworth Miller, the screenwriter for `Stoker.  The name didn't ring a bell to me.  But because I love film, and I am obsessively curious about the background and crew, I Googled him.  I found out that he played the younger Coleman Silk in another beautiful, very curious 2003 film The Human Stain, also starring Kidman and Anthony Hopkins.

[Miller] used the pseudonym Ted Foulke for submitting his work, later explaining "I just wanted the scripts to sink or swim on their own."  Miller's script was voted to the 2010 "Black List" of the 10 best unproduced screenplays then making the rounds in Hollywood.  Miller described it as a "horror film, a family drama and a psychological thriller".  Although influenced by Bram Stoker's Dracula, Miller clarified that Stoker was "not about vampires.  It was never meant to be about vampires but it is a horror story. A stoker is one who stokes, which also ties in nicely with the narrative."  Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt also influenced the film. Miller said: "The jumping-off point is actually Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt. So, that's where we begin, and then we take it in a very, very different direction."

Reference:  Stoker.  

I have been enthralled with `Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) for a long time.  I watched that Hitchcock film (1943), and it too was superb.  I'm sure the inspiration for Miller is a bit more intricate than we can know, but an evocative name like "Stoker" and a conniving character like Uncle Charlie are the threads that stitch Miller to his creative predecessors.

  

Poetry

The influences to my poetry are many, but Shakespeare, and poets WH Auden and John Ashbery are prominent.  For example, my latest poem - Swan Song of Ophelia - is about one of the most tender yet enigmatic women in Shakespeare.  Auden wrote a breathtaking commentary on The Tempest, titled `The Sea and the Mirror, which in turn inspired me to write a long poem about a patient I worked with, who committed suicide.  Ashbery, along with surrealist painter Salvador Dali and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, were instrumental to the poetry I wrote in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

But let's take one from my collection The Song Poems.  The idea is simple:  I take any music video I like from YouTube, then I let it take me wherever it wishes to take me.  These poems are an account of these journeys.

The following are the specific music videos that inspired me to write this song poem:

  

Nowadays social media, technology devices, and digital content all extend and tighten the ties that connect us to one another.  What I've captured here is just a small sampling of my argument that art is never completely original.  To come back to Donne, none of us is an island onto himself or herself.  There is no person born and raised in complete isolation, and biologically we are forever bound to our parents.   

Art simply gives us the means, the knowledge, and the opportunity to do what creative thing we wish to do with whatever and whoever came before us.

Art is Synesthetic

Preface

As Dr. Ron Art took sufficient shape for me to launch it via a Facebook page three years ago, I wanted to share my Art Manifesto.  This manifesto isn't just a set of beliefs about art, but also a proposal about the very nature of art.  Physicists work at discovering the immutable laws of the universe, and in a similar way I work at crystallizing some fundamental truths about art.  More broadly, art is an integral component of The Tripartite Model, along with science and religion.

My Art Manifesto

1. Art is cross-art by nature
2. Art is always autobiographical
3. Art is sensuous
4. Art is synesthetic
5. Art is never completely original
6. Art has value

Dr. Ron Art is a sizable complex with five main wings, under which several projects are at various stages of progress:

• Poetry in Multimedia 
• Shakespeare Talks! 
• Dramatis Personae 
• Art Intersections 
• T'ai Chi Empower

My Art Manifesto is the undercurrent for these projects.  This is the fourth of six articles, where I introduce this manifesto. 

I have this pet idea that (a) we work at art is sensuous, that is, heightening our five senses for any stimuli around us.  Then (b) we cross the usual pairing of sense and stimulus, and now it's art is synesthetic.  Synesthesia is a neurological condition, where sense-stimulus pairings are scrambled, for example, hearing colors or seeing music.

Some synesthetes often report that they were unaware their experiences were unusual until they realized other people did not have them, while others report feeling as if they had been keeping a secret their entire lives.  The automatic and ineffable nature of a synesthetic experience means that the pairing may not seem out of the ordinary. This involuntary and consistent nature helps define synesthesia as a real experience. Most synesthetes report that their experiences are pleasant or neutral, although, in rare cases, synesthetes report that their experiences can lead to a degree of sensory overload.

Though often stereotyped in the popular media as a medical condition or neurological aberration, many synesthetes themselves do not perceive their synesthetic experiences as a handicap. To the contrary, some report it as a gift—an additional "hidden" sense—something they would not want to miss. Most synesthetes become aware of their distinctive mode of perception in their childhood. Some have learned how to apply their ability in daily life and work. Synesthetes have used their abilities in memorization of names and telephone numbers, mental arithmetic, and more complex creative activities like producing visual art, music, and theater.

Reference: Synesthesia.

That's stupid.  Numbers don't have colors, they have personalities!

Of course, synesthesia isn't the purview of art alone.  I love what Alex relates at the end: Fellow synesthetes have very different orientations to numbers, so their gatherings have the makings of a friendly fight.

I don't view synesthesia as a medical problem, though it can be, if a person is disturbed by it and it affects his or her day-to-day functioning.  By and large, though, synesthetes who may or may not be artists clearly find it pleasant and normal.  I imagine that in general established artists or would-be artists have a greater degree of synesthesia than non-artists. 

Imagine the creative possibilities

Five years ago I was at Happy Hour with a couple of friends in Dubai, and I must've mentioned synesthesia.  They didn't know what it was, so I explained it and mentioned it as a hallmark of art.  I met them in an acting class, so like me they were artistic sorts and they were duly intrigued by its being an art manifesto.

I promised to write a poem about it:

They say, true synesthesia is involuntary –

Like twitch of muscle fibers, firing of nerve cells,

Molecular activity of momentary

But frequent ringing of cross-stimulating bells.

But I do not conceive this as neurologists

For science claims too much of human mantelpiece,

Or relegate to armchairs of psychologists

(Though I am one) this cross-emotional release.

So, dear, who truly owns this synesthesic power?

The artist!  Let’s begin with sight.  For eyes have might

To hear the music in Picasso, feel the hour

Shorten upon the skin from images at night. 

Consider hearing.  Enter Mozart opera –

“The Magic Flute” singspiel that is a rousing texture

On fingertips, a harlequin to camera

Of colors from dramatic notes-and-words admixture.

Now, smell.  The fragrant hyacinths across the field

May give rise to a spread of roasted lamb, merlot

And crème brûlée – for flavor is as much the yield

Of fragrance as of succulence, tied with a bow.

Taste, then.  Cold water on the palate in the heat

Of equatorial summers is to bathe in springs

Collecting from the mountaintops, down to their feet,

Where rushing, falling is what water also sings. 

 

Last but not least, is touch.  For lovers, all the world

Is synesthesia.  Were they simply left alone

To stroke each other’s face, we’d see the cherubs twirl,

Hear oud play, breathe perfume, lap Häagen-Dazs’s cone.   

So, there, the sensual artist is the king and queen,

Whose living fully rules each momentary scene.

Synesthesia © Ron Villejo

So how about synesthesia in short film, music video, and training and education?

I love the bits about listening to fruits and vegetables, meat and eggs, then himself.  Toasting, cooking and eating books.  Herds of cats coming out of the speakers.

The lyrics and singing are terrible, but the visuals and music are catchy.  The Hindu holiday of Holi - the festival of colors - is a nice touch.

I like the notion of metaphor as seeing the similar in dissimilar things.  But imagine the work of researchers in synesthesia, applied as training and education for all art students.  There is evidence that our brain is very plastic, that is, pliable and changeable.  So we could adopt neurological applications for children, teenagers and adults, and thereby build up their artistry, creativity and innovation, and reshape their (our) brain for a meaningful good. 

Art is Sensuous

Preface

As Dr. Ron Art took sufficient shape for me to launch it via a Facebook page three years ago, I wanted to share my Art Manifesto.  This manifesto isn't just a set of beliefs about art, but also a proposal about the very nature of art.  Physicists work at discovering the immutable laws of the universe, and in a similar way I work at crystallizing some fundamental truths about art.  More broadly, art is an integral component of The Tripartite Model, along with science and religion.

My Art Manifesto

1. Art is cross-art by nature
2. Art is always autobiographical
3. Art is sensuous
4. Art is synesthetic
5. Art is never completely original
6. Art has value

Dr. Ron Art is a sizable complex with five main wings, under which several projects are at various stages of progress:

• Poetry in Multimedia 
• Shakespeare Talks! 
• Dramatis Personae 
• Art Intersections 
• T'ai Chi Empower

My Art Manifesto is the undercurrent for these projects. This is the third of six articles, where I introduce this manifesto.

Touch

Nicholas Cage as Seth and Meg Ryan as Maggie in `City of Angels (1998) have a moment at the library.  She feels him hold her hand and run a finger on her palm.  She had questioned his feeling that she was an excellent doctor, and had tacitly dismissed such praise from the stranger.  In one regard, this beautiful, poignant film is her story, she who is first baffled and skeptical, then shifts from science (analytical and skeptical) to art (experiential and authentic).  At the end, she glides on a kind of ribbon of religion, where she lives life fully, with the wind in her hair and the sun on her face.

Taste

As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste... as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy. 

From a passage in A Moveable Feast, by Earnest Hemingway, which Seth reads.

Sight

There is quite a lot in the following clip from `A Beautiful Mind (2001), where Russell Crowe as John and Jennifer Connelly as Alicia go a first date.  The visuals in general are arresting.  But if we believe that God is truly an artist, then the visuals of a Marc Chagall painting are as transcendent as Alicia sees it and also as stunning as she is.  At her behest, the geeky genius John sees a certain artistry in the cosmos. 

Self Portrait with Seven Fingers (1913), by Marc Chagall

Sound

Charlotte Church sings `All You Can Be, as the love theme, in a hauntingly beautiful voice.  In fact, the soundtrack James Horner is in and of itself sensuous. 

Scent

`Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is an unfortunate title for this lush and lavish 2006 film.  Indeed Ben Whishaw as Jean-Baptiste Grenouille does kill, in an effort to capture the intoxicating but elusive scent of a woman.  But his killings are simply one part of a rich story about his ungodly heightened sense of smell.  In reality, of course, we as the audience do not smell what he smells.  But through the filmmaker's craft and our imagination, it was quite easy for us to smell all that captivated Jean-Baptiste.

Finally, my poem on a stunningly fragrant, long lasting Casablanca Lily:

Not all pieces of art will engage our five senses equally.  But if we give free reign to all of our senses, then art as a whole rewards us with an inviolably sensuous experience.