The disembodied eyeballs you see on these two images represent the “eye of providence” or “the all-seeing eye” in art history. Floating eyes have made this appearance in visual media as far back as the Ancient Egyptian eye of Ra, but the Late Middle Ages in Europe saw a re-invigorization of the symbol, where it stood for an omnipresent and omnipotent deity. The first photo is from a 16th-century painting by Jan Provost known as “Sacred Allegory.” The second is the Eye of Providence adopted in 1782 for the Great Seal of the United States: the unfinished pyramid below has thirteen steps for the thirteen colonies, building up to the capstone, with the triangle containing the eye representing the three components of the Christian trinity. Only later did the Freemasons adopt the symbol.
Incidentally, the Latin on the dollar bill corresponds with the image: “Annuit Coeptis” means “[Providence/God] has approved our undertakings.” “Novo ordo seclorum” means “a new order of the ages.” Images and phrases are theistic but not overtly Christian, and a number of early presidents sympathized with the Enlightenment religious orientation of Deism (Washington, Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and John Tyler — but several of these men also attended Christian church services occasionally.)
Source(s): “Art Spotlight: Jan Provost’s Eye of God,” @stufftoblowyourmind, Robert Lamb, Feb 29, 2016. “The All-seeing Eye: Symbol of the Great Architect” _Philathes: The Journal of Masonic Research and Letters_, 2015, Shawn Eyer.
