Eyelids

The eye-painting practice catalogued under this umbrella is a cosmetic act prepared for a specific kind of presentation — the woman who dresses, paints, and ornaments herself to be seen by approaching men. UPDV renders the body part painted as "eyes," and the three scenes that share this image all carry an unfavorable verdict on the figure performing the act.

Painting the eyes

The picture lands sharpest on Jezebel: "And when Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it; and she painted her eyes, and attired her head, and looked out at the window" (2 Kgs 9:30). The cosmetic preparation is staged exactly as Jehu arrives — a final self-display before a confrontation she does not survive. Jeremiah uses the same grammar of cosmetic effort to indict Jerusalem under coming desolation: "Though you dress yourself with scarlet, though you deck you with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with paint, in vain you make yourself fair; [your] lovers despise you, they seek your soul" (Jer 4:30). The whole effort is futile. Ezekiel's Oholibah, already an extended figure of unfaithfulness, does the same thing for the sake of the men sent for from afar: "for whom you washed yourself, painted your eyes, and decked yourself with ornaments" (Ezek 23:40).

In all three the painted eyes are part of a sequence — washing, attiring, painting, ornamenting — and in all three the woman who performs it is being addressed in judgment, not in praise. The act itself is recorded without comment; the comment lies in the surrounding indictment.