Art: Arcadia by Telescope

Many a modern student of art who wandered into Manhattan's Whitney Museum last week smiled patronizingly at what he saw. On the walls were more than a hundred paintings and drawings by an almost forgotten U.S. landscapist named Thomas Cole. His worst pictures were vast neo-classical allegories done after he had become famous and made the Grand Tour of Europe. His best were meticulous and tender souvenirs of walking trips through the Catskills, the White Mountains and the old Northwest Territory, sometimes embellished with a log cabin, a lone hunter, or a circle...