Edward Hopper's Land of the Loner

By MICHAEL DIRDA

People never smile in the paintings of Edward Hopper (1882-1967). Lonely men in shirt sleeves sit on the curb outside vacant stores, peering down at the cracked pavement ("Sunday," 1926), or they prop themselves upright in lawn chairs, beside deserted highways, and stare into the empty distance ("Four Lane Road," 1956). They show no emotion....