Last Sunday, during a trip to The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, I caught their special exhibit entitled The Scandalous Art of James Ensor. Ensor is known as "the painter of masks" and true to that designation, the exhibition focuses on a time in Ensor's career when he pivoted away from naturalistic painting and toward more creative and disturbing imagery. Ensor's "scandalous" work depicts society imagery - parties, religious processions, theater goers, and art studios - with a disturbing twist; the heads of the figures are replaced with skulls or faces are distorted into melting masks.

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