ART: UNDER THE CRACK OF REALITY

EDWARD HOPPER DIED in 1967, nearly 30 years ago, but he remains one of those artists whose work--no matter how familiar and often reproduced it has become--comes up fresh whenever you see it. This diffident son of a Nyack, New York, dry-goods merchant had a long working life, almost all of it in America, and a sober style, some of which came from France and particularly from Manet and Daumier. One of his few public utterances--in 1927, to the effect that "now or in the near future, American art should be weaned from its French mother"--used to be taken by cultural...