My prejudices tend towards the universe (including the range of possible inventions and art) to be much larger than any mind within it, but I'm not sure how to prove either option.

The problem is that if you perfectly understand the process of art generation. There are cellular automata that generate novel music. How much do you value running such an automata and watching it output music? To me it seems that the value of novelty is diminished by the comprehension of the procedures generating it.