I think the contemporary visual "fine" art scene is responsible for quite some damage in how people conceptualize art; "snobbery" is not an unfair description. It's difficult from the outset to distinguish smoke and mirrors from the real thing.

Industries with more tangible economical grounds (e.g. comics, animation, advertisement) are usually better sources of knowledge as a result.

> I wonder if flow is one of those rudimentary visual skills, because I never experienced it before someone told me about it.

Perhaps it'd be more accurate to say that it has never been experienced consciously: advertisement, movies, animated movies, all are designed with such ideas in mind.

Also, note that there can be "variants" on this idea of flow. For example, "unity in diversity" is a common composition principle, where you try find a balance between an excess of diversity (chaotic looking) and a lack of it (boring): this will encourage the creation of a few tied zones within a piece, and a "flow"/"eyes pathways" should naturally arise.

But even that principle of "unity in diversity" isn't always expressed in this way, sometimes it will arise from other notions (see the 5 principles of composition mentioned here [0]).

[0]: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45410/45410-h/45410-h.html#t...