In a city not exactly swarming with cultural attractions, the opening on Jan. 12 of the new Center for the Fine Arts has caused quite a stir. The first publicly built and supported art facility in Dade County, it's a kunsthalle, a building meant for the exhibition of art, not its acquisition. It's also the first edifice to be unveiled in the Metro-Dade Cultural Center, a complex of three institutions designed by Philip Johnson that form a kind of palace compound in a mix of Mediterranean styles. (The other two buildings, still in progress, are a public library and a museum of local history.)
And ably shoehorned into the Center, the smallest building of the three, is a spectacular inaugural show, ''In Quest of Excellence: Civic Pride, Patronage, Connoisseurship'' (through April 22), assembled by Jan van der Marck, director of the new facility. For this $500,000 extravaganza, 60 museums in 50 cities around the country have lent 203 works - paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, photographs and examples of the decorative arts, more than a few of masterpiece quality - that range in time from 1,500 B.C. to the present, and across many cultures.
Such a show, like an orgy, doesn't lend itself to reviewing; you take from it what you like and leave the rest for others. But among objects that particularly pleased this viewer are a small Egyptian cat, of bronze and rock crystal, possibly dating from the 15th century B.C.; a Chinese ritual vessel in the shape of an owl, circa 11th-8th centuries B.C.; a Limoges crucifix, 1190-1200 A.D.; a 17th- century Benin bronze figure from Nigeria, and a black- and-white wool coverlet by an unknown American folk artist, circa 1845. As for paintings, the run is impressive. Particularly noteworthy from the early period are Fra Angelico's ''The Temptation of St. Anthony the Abbot,'' circa 1430, and Jean-Francois Millet's ''Landscape With Mountains and a Plume of Smoke,'' after 1660. An 18th-century knockout is Tiepolo's ''Girl With a Lute,'' 1753-57. Wonderful portraits include George Stubbs's horse, ''Rufus,'' circa 1762-65; Gustave Courbet's dogs, ''The Greyhounds of the Comte de Choiseul,'' 1866, and Cezanne's ''Madame Cezanne in Blue,'' 1885-87. From this century, to mention a few, there are Marsden Hartley's ''The Iron Cross,'' 1915; Arshile Gorky's ''The Liver Is the Cock's Comb,'' 1944, and Jean Dubuffet's ''Topography of a Nest of Stones,'' 1958. Among the sculptures, Alberto Giacommeti's attenuated, life-size bronze, ''Man Pointing,'' 1947, and David Smith's stainless steel ''Cubi IX,'' 1961, are compelling. Mr. van der Marck himself points out that this collectors' jamboree is the kind of exhibition ''usually only seen at world's fairs.'' And he notes in its elegant catalogue - partially funded by a grant from the Knight Foundation - that it offers ''a tribute to the foresight, genius and generosity of those who founded, enriched and led our art museums from the early 19th century to the present day.'' But, more than an homage to the country's museums, the show is frankly intended to acquaint Miami with the strength of public art holdings in more established cities, made possible by the ''civic pride and philanthropy'' of individual collectors and patrons. With its wealth of big- name artists and loans from prestigeful museums, ''Quest'' is obviously keyed to what advertising people would call ''brand recognition.'' The names - and the generally high quality of the objects - are meant to dazzle a community in which museumgoing has not had a high priority. And, though the director hasn't come right out and said so, if Miamians get the message that a good public collection can enhance the life of a community, the provision in the Center's charter that allows it only to exhibit, not acquire - a mistake in the eyes of many - may someday be amended.
In organizing ''Quest'' over a four-year period, Mr. van der Marck aimed at creating what he calls ''the museum of my dreams,'' an ideal gallery of works that would evoke the entire span of art history. Choosing three objects - where possible - from each lending institution, he also tried to suggest the holdings characteristic of each, as evidenced in high periods of acquisition and scholarship. The Cleveland Museum of Art, for instance, noted for its medieval, Oriental, Impressionist and Post- Impressionist collections, has lent an 18th-century Japanese screen, a marvelous 12th-century reliquary in the form of an arm, and a strange, intense painting by Vincent van Gogh, ''Mademoiselle Ravoux,'' 1890. The Whitney Museum in New York is represented by the work of three artists closely associated with its development - Stuart Davis's frothy Paris scene, ''Place Pasdeloup,'' 1928; Edward Hopper's haunting small-town storefront, ''Seven A.M.,'' 1948, and Alexander Calder's playful wire sculpture, ''Cage Within a Cage,'' 1939. Not to ignore local resources, the University of Miami's Lowe Art Museum in Coral Gables was also tapped for a Chinese bronze, an American Indian serape, a diptych by the 16th-century Dutch painter Adriaen Isenbrant, and Duane Hanson's life-size, realistic sculpture of a sweaty football player.
The show was really hatched more than 25 years ago, when the Dutch-born director came to this country on a Rockefeller grant to study the ways in which American museums confronted their public. His impressions of the ''visual feasts'' they spread stayed with him and, offered the Center's directorship in 1979, he conceived the idea of celebrating American collections along with the community forces that helped to build them. Among those whose aid he sought in refining the concept - and in negotiating some key loans - was the redoubtable Sherman E. Lee, who recently retired as director of the Cleveland Museum of Art, and who has contributed a lively essay on collecting to the catalogue, which also boasts the bylines of J. Carter Brown of the National Gallery, Philippe de Montebello of the Metropolitan Museum and Agnes Mongan, formerly of the Fogg Museum.
The Center's lack of a track record in security matters, and its delay of more than a year in opening, caused by the enforced revamping of the smoke evacuation system for the entire cultural complex, were not factors to inspire confidence among lenders. Nor does the Center, without a collection of its own, have the loan reciprocity of other institutions. It's to the credit of the museums involved, as well as a tribute to the clout of Mr. van der Marck, his trustees, aides and advisers, that most of the loans came through. The Center's restriction on collecting was foisted on it by its founders' recognition that good art these days comes very high, and by the pressure of other local art collecting institutions: the Bass Museum in Miami Beach, the Lowe Museum and the Metropolitan Museum and Art Center in Coral Gables. But no one's willing to bet on how long the Center will be kept on this leash.