The Fine Arts.

Richard Wagner, well known as an artist, has brought out at Leipzic a book called Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft (Art in the Future), which excites a good deal of attention, and is soundly assailed by those who dislike it. Wagner adopts the philosophical ideas of Feuerbach, and treats his subject from that stand-point. Into modern art he pitches with all the force of a genuine iconoclast. He says it is a sexless, sterile product of dreams, not art, but merely manner, &c. With him art must come out of the people, and be the apotheosis of the people. The people are immortal and ever young. With the poets and novel-writers of the day, Wagner has no more patience than with the artists. They are, he thinks, dilettanti, sentimentalists, who coquet with the misery of the masses, in order to serve the same up well spiced and warmed to their luxurious and fashionable readers. The ideal and absolute in art he finds in the drama, which is the sum and type of all other artistic creations. But no drama yet produced satisfies him, and he tells the reasons why without hesitation. Those who wish to be entertained and set thinking by an author who is in earnest even when most paradoxical, may look at Wagner's book with advantage.

Thorwaldsen.—The Danish Government some time since sent Mr. Thiele, a competent person, to Rome, for the purpose of collecting every thing that could be obtained toward a history of the life and works of this illustrious sculptor, whose early life is so obscure that even the date and place of his birth are unknown, as well as the employment he made of the first years that he was in Italy. Mr. Thiele has found a number of casks in the cellars of the Tomati Palace at Rome, filled with letters, addressed to Thorwaldsen, and among them a long and constant correspondence between him and his mother, who lived part of the time in Denmark and part of the time in Iceland, her native country. It seems that Thorwaldsen had the habit of preserving his papers, even to the most trifling, by flinging them confusedly into a cedar box in his room; when that was full they were emptied into the casks where they have now been found; these casks were not noticed when all the other contents of the palace were removed to Copenhagen. Whatever is interesting in these papers will, of course, be published. Mr. Thiele has also discovered in the same cellar the model of a bas-relief by the same great artist, representing the Muses dancing by Helicon. It will be added to the collection of his works at Copenhagen.

The artist Heidel has published at Berlin a series of Eight Illustrations to Goethe's Iphigenia. He aims in them to preserve unmixed the spirit of antique art, and thus to prove that the Germans are the true successors of the Greeks. The subjects of his designs are:—The Fall of Tantalus; the Departure of Agamemnon; the Sacrifice of Iphigenia; the Death of Agamemnon; the Death of Clytemnestræ; the Flight of Orestes; the Meeting of Orestes and Iphigenia; and the Return of Iphigenia. The designs are praised by the German critics. They say that in beholding the Flight of Orestes, pursued by the Furies, who dare not enter the sacred temple of Apollo where he seeks refuge, one imagines that he hears the fearful chanting of a chorus of Æschylus.

A new art called Metallography has been discovered by Nicholas Zack, a lithographer at Munich, by means of which designs that have hitherto been engraved on wood can be put directly upon metal, and in such a manner as to be printed from. The plate is prepared beforehand, and the artist draws his design upon it with a pencil or a needle. Without any further labor, by means of the preparation alone, the plate will be ready for printing. Worn-out plates may be restored with very little expense.

A bookseller of Munich has published Albert Dürer's sketches from the prayer-book of Emperor Maximilian I., with the original text, colored initials, and an introduction. Price eight thalers, about $6,00.

Moritz Rugendas, a German artist, who has lately spent a considerable time in Mexico and the countries of South America, is now engaged at Munich, in arranging the pictures for which his journeys in those countries furnished him the materials. A work of such magnitude has never before been undertaken by any artist. He intends to treat each country in a continuous series of views. The Mexican series is now nearly completed, consisting of about 100 landscapes, in oil. It begins with Vera Cruz, where the artist landed, and goes through the whole country to the Pacific. First is the coast seen from the sea; next we behold the coast with the sea as it appears inland; then we mount to the plains, noticing the gradual change of the mountain formations, and the vegetation, with views in every direction from each interesting point; we pass through the great plateau, ascend the volcanoes and survey their craters, and admire the beauty of the region about the city of Mexico. From the city there are sketches of journeys in every direction, and at last we traverse the palm forest of St. Jago, and stand upon the heights whence the eye reaches to the Pacific. Every picturesque scene is finished with the greatest care and with special regard to the natural features of the landscape. Buildings and human figures are either avoided altogether or used as merely subordinate. When Mexico is completed, Rugendas will use in a similar manner the sketches he has taken in other countries. It is not known whether his pictures will be engraved or not. They will, we believe, become the property of the Royal Pinakothek, at Munich.

The painters at Vienna have formed an Art-Union, which is succeeding in its first exhibition, which is now open. Some well-known artists of Germany have sent pictures. Foltz, of Munich, has a landscape with a flock of sheep; Zimmerman a landscape with effect of sunlight; Hülner, of Düsseldorf, a boy reading the Bible to his mother, Vienna. Koeckoeck, of Holland, has two landscapes. The artists of Vienna have also not been backward. Among the names of the exhibitors we notice that of Waldmüller, who is known in this country for his picture of the Children leaving School, which was drawn a year since by one of the subscribers to the International Art-Union, and was regarded as one of the chief attractions of its collection.

We hear from Berlin that Kaulbach has painted in miniature the Four Evangelists, in a copy of Luther's translation of the New Testament, which is destined for the World's Fair. The book is a folio; the leaves are of vellum, and the printing is done in Gothic letters and in various colored inks by four accomplished masters of calligraphy. These artists have also ornamented their work with numerous vignettes. The book is now being exhibited at the Royal Library in Berlin.

Mr. Prescott, Mr. Ticknor, and other Boston gentlemen of high cultivation and artistic taste, have prepared a memorial to Congress that Powers should be commissioned by government to put into marble his statue of America. For less than twenty-five thousand dollars, probably—for a sum not larger than that which was paid by the government for the two specimens of commonplace by Mr. Persico, this admirable production might be obtained in colossal size for the capitol.

The German Archāologische Institut, at Rome, celebrated the birth-day of Winckelmann on the 13th of December. Dr. Emil Braun read an essay on the two chief groups of the frieze of the Parthenon. These groups have hitherto been supposed to represent the twelve gods of Olympus; Dr. Braun attempted to show that they represent, in a double point of view, the native heroes of Attica. The physical development of the country is expressed in the genealogy of a royal race, beginning with Cecrops and his wife Agraulia, continued in Cranaus and Amphictyon, and finally passing into Erichthonius, the son of Atthis, and foster son of Pandrosos. The social organization of the state begins with Erechtheus, who is aided by his wife Praxithea, and his daughter Creusa. He annexes Eleusis to Athens, the former being here represented by Demeter and Triptolemus; finally Theseus with his friend Pirithous completes the civil organization of Athens, and establishes it upon a firm basis. Essays on subjects connected with antique art and history were also read by Dr. L. Schmidt, Dr. H. Brunn, and Dr. W. Heuzen.

The paintings of the Chapel of the Virgin in the Church of Nôtre Dame de Lorette, a vast work, which has hitherto remained unknown to the public, and which has been interrupted by the recent death of the painter, M. Victor Orsel, are now attracting attention. M. Perrin, intrusted with the execution of a similar chapel in the same edifice, will undertake the pious task of terminating the work of a friend, with whom he had lived on terms of the closest friendship, cemented by a community of ideas and talent. Orsel was making rapid strides towards a great reputation.

We had occasion lately to notice in the International the illustrations of Hood's "Bridge of Sighs," by Mr. Ehninger. This young artist has just published in a large quarto (through Putnam) a series of Outline Illustrations of Washington Irving's "Dolph Heyliger," which are an improvement upon his first performance. Many of the scenes are admirably rendered. We believe Mr. Ehninger is now pursuing the study of art abroad.

The German sculptor, Wolff, has added to, his many admirable works a figure of Paris, which is much praised.