Being completely engaged in their creation as well as completely engaging the audience is one of, if not the most central motivation for artists, just as experiencing to ‘get lost’ in the artwork is a main incentive for art consumption, whether it is visual art, music, literature, or artistic performances. The flow state, defined as optimal engagement with a goal-oriented activity, can be used to conceptualize both the artist’s specific state of mind during fluent creative processes as well as the art recipient’s experience of complete captivation when exploring the artwork, if this definition of flow is extended to mental activities and person-inherent goals. Empirically, the prominent role of flow in both art creation and consumption has been shown in a variety of correlational studies, mostly in the realm of music. Besides its association with heightened enjoyment, flow has on the side of the artist been linked to skill development, creative cognition, and artistic quality, and on the side of the art recipient with appreciation, aesthetic emotions, and understanding. However, as experimental manipulation of artistic stimuli and their flow potential is particularly challenging, the causal nature of these associations remains largely unclear. Similarly, the prediction of flow in artistic contexts is complicated by their versatility, as the key predictor for flow, a balance between skills and challenges, is harder to operationalize and measure the more diverse the underlying abilities and demands are. Therefore, flow research in the context of art and art reception requires a specific approach to measure, model, and manipulate flow experiences; if done successfully, it will, however, make a valuable contribution to our understanding of the flow phenomenon at large by giving insight into the underlying processes through which individuals ‘create’ their own flow experiences.