Everybody knows that something happened to English painting after the diath of Turner, but nobody knows exactly what. As one scans the annals of English painting, looking for exceptions to this general rule of decline, one of the names that offers itself is that of Walter Sickert. The Sickert exhibition at the Hirschl & Adler Galleries will do nothing to change this equivocal response. The quality of certain pictures is undeniable, but these pictures are distinctly in a minority. Many of Sickert's best pictures seem designed, at first glance, to resist being seen. The palette is predominantly, often oppressively, limited to murky browns and grays. It would be a mistake to discount the element of realism in Sickert. Indeed, a facile realism often led him astray. It is this retinal integrity that aligns his work with the Impressionist mode, even though he eschews the Impressionist taste for high color.