I am inherently suspicious of folks who can't handle basic drawing skills and thereafter turn to "interpretive" or "abstract" art. Jackson Pollock, a truly awful painter when he tried realism, is a prime example. He was still an awful painter while dripping globs of pigment on huge canvases, but it was harder to tell. :-D
Just to make everybody mad, though, I'll point out that Cole couldn't draw the human figure very well. His people are stiff, conventional to his period (women with big eyes and tiny pointed feet) and not quite anatomically correct. But his landscapes are marvellous.
For somebody of the period who could handle both landscapes and the human figure, may I offer William Sidney Mount?
The Farmers' Nooning
The Power of Music
He was really a Long Island painter rather than HRS, but about the same period or a trifle later (1830s).