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The Fine Arts.

THE FINE ARTS IN AMERICA are not in a state of remarkable perfection, if we may credit a writer in the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung.  This critic is evidently honest and impartial, but not perfectly well informed.  He supposes that the majority of the artists as well as of the scholars in the country are emigrants from Europe; and affirms that artists of great talent, who have been esteemed and encouraged in Europe, have been reduced to misery in America, and compelled to resort to common labor for their living.  Latterly, however, fashion has brought pictures into market; and we may now hear, in more refined circles, here and there a misapplied artistic term, which shows that art is somewhat thought of.  It is characteristic that an American will often bargain for pictures by the square foot.  The New York Art Union has done a good deal of good in the culture of taste for art, and from the Philadelphia Art Union much may also be expected.  The daguerreotypes taken here may be compared with the best of Voightlaender of Vienna and Williams of Liverpool.  The talbotypes of this country are better than all others.  Lithographing is done mostly by French and Germans; wood-cutting and steel-engraving by Englishmen and Americans.  The products of the latter two resemble perfectly those of the same arts in England.  Dramatic and musical art are in a feeble condition.  The theaters in the great cities have been visited by the writer, and nothing admirable found in them.  They are all private enterprises, and no great things are to be expected in that line without the aid of a government.  The theaters are built and furnished in the most elegant and even luxurious style.  The Italian Opera in New York is supplied by European artists whose best days are over.  The actors never rise to any commendable excellence, and the pieces they perform are well adapted to their talents.  Hardly ever is anything classical produced upon the stage.

The German drama in the United States is spoken of as being in a condition of even more desperate degradation.  The writer’s remarks on that subject will not specially interest our readers; but we trust that what we have given above from his strictures will be edifying to all whom it may concern.

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FROM ROME we hear of an extensive undertaking about to be commenced in the way of Catholic Art.  The plan is this:  Overbeck, whose designs from Scripture history are familiar to all lovers of Art who have not overlooked one of the most remarkable geniuses of the times, is now employed upon fourteen compositions representing the fourteen Stations or pauses of the Lord on his way to the cross.  Part of them are already done, and to judge from them the series will surpass all previous works of this great master.  These designs are to be multiplied to the greatest extent and put within the means of churches, convents