I spent part of this afternoon listening to some of the You Tube clips I included with this post as I was writing, folllowing the excellent example set by my lovely editor, who I know was doing the same thing!
The older I get the more I appreciate the value of the arts. They are good for the soul (the brain, your own creativity etc). And given the arts play an important role in life, I think this should be reflected in the fiction we create.
In your stories what role(s) does the arts play? Does everyone have access to them? Or are they just seen as something for the elite? What kind of arts exist in your fictional world? What form(s) does music, just to name one example, take in your world? Sherlock Holmes was renowned, amongst other things, for unwinding by playing his violin so how do your characters use the arts to help them relax?
The arts also generate revenue in various ways so what benefit does your world have from this aspect? How does your fictional government/council etc use that revenue? In my fictional Fairy Kingdom, my Fairy Queen has "adopted" photography from what she has seen from her observations on life on Earth. "Adopted" being a code for "pinched the idea and used it in her own world for her own purposes, thank you". Nobody said fairies were nice and above stealing ideas! So in your setting, what arts would we recognise (painting I would have thought would be universal, just what is painted would change from world to world)? What arts would be alien to us? And has your world stolen ideas from other places it has visited/invaded in the past?