Though personally I have become less and less inclined towards private devotionalism and more and more liturgically oriented in my liturgical life, the devotion to and artistic motif of the Instruments of the Passion has always fascinated me. As a medievalist this sort of very concrete, sentimental, grotesque piety still appeals to me in a certain sense, though it is a development of the later Middle Ages.At least then there was still something masculine about it; unlike the Jesus-in-a-Mascara-Commercial art that became popular in the 19th and 20th centuries, though those are pitiable in their own way...
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We observe the same devotion, we just call it a different name. In Spanish speaking nations, it is known as "El Justo Juez", The Just Judge. Here is my personal favourite depiction of said image:
http://shalombooksny.com/oscommerce/images/justo%20juez.jpg
The image goes hand in hand with The Arma Christi:
http://www.holycross.edu/departments/visarts/projects/kempe/devotion/christs_passion/passionsweb.htm
As to The Image of Christ with mascara like eyes, it is an attempt in my opinion to make Christ's eyes both piercing and compassionate to the sinner (as well as to capture some essence of the fact that he was an ethnic Jew/Hebrew (ie typically people of Middle Eastern and North African descent have very thick and long eyelashes) ).
Maybelline ?, smh.
Did I ever show you Gottlieb's Christ preaching at Capernaum ? If not, here it is: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gottlieb-Christ_Preaching_at_Capernaum.jpg
Interesting that a Jew would paint Christ. A pretty good portrayal if I do say so myself, Hebrews for the win !, :-P .
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