Hi John

How do you define "sensuousness"?  You seem to be saying it is a quality found in works of art and not in "brute reality". If that were the definition, it would not be of much use for a definition of art, since you have used art to define it in the first place.

Also, in the normal sense of the word, "sensuous" can be applied to many kinds of objects that are not works of art. So are you using in some special sense? If so what?

There are historical reasons why the notion of the "sensuous" got attached to art in the eighteenth century. But it is high time, I think, we took a hard look at it.  Like many ideas about art we have inherited from the eighteenth century, it is of very doubtful value for an understanding of the world of art we know today. (This is not of course to say that art does not make use of "sensuous" elements. But so do many things that are not art.)

DA