Identify this image

Yes, iconographic analysis is understanding images by means of the symbolic elements contained in them.  I will ask you guys, though, why do you think this is a scene of the young Jesus in Joseph's workshop?  Why is this not simply a family in a workshop?

Because there's a lot of religious symbolism in the painting?  The boy with the bowl is John the Baptist, the ladder against the wall (Jacob's ladder?), but I think mainly it's because of Jesus's hand.  Do art movements coincide with literature?  If so this was the Realism period which showed people in their natural settings without the sensationalism shown in the Romantic period.

I guess what I'm asking is why you think those figures are who you think they are.  Why do you think this is symbolic in the first place?  And if I told you the painter was an African tribal member, would you think this was still a symbolic painting?  So the painter is not an African tribal member (to my knowledge), but the point still stands.

I do not know how to answer those questions.  I just call it as I see it, man.

Ha, I didn't mean to put you through the ringer on this one.  ;D  I think the answer is basically that we have a "code" by which we understand the painting and within this code are certain symbolic elements.  Who are "we"?  Western civilization, something like that.  This is why if someone who was unfamiliar with the code might not know how the symbolic elements that you pointed out.  A dude from the Brazilian rainforest, for example, would recognize the painting as containing figures and perhaps what was going on, but might not understand it as a religious painting.I agree with you that it looks like the figure in the middle is Christ and the woman Mary.  How do we know?  As you pointed out there is a wound in the hand (obviously wasn't there until the Crucifixion), which seems to prefigure Christ's future Passion.  The woman next to him, presumably a mother, is wearing blue.  Blue was the traditional color used for Mary since the 15th century, when an expensive blue dye made from lapis lazuli was reserved for important uses, such as on Mary's cloak and other selected elements of paintings.  The boy on the right does seem to be St. John the Baptist, due to the water he carries as a prefiguration of his role as a baptizer.  Also, his lack of shirt (and possible furry pants suggest as much).  It also appears that the man in red is St. Joseph, due to his traditional role as carpenter and his attention paid to Christ.  It's a little hard to tell who the figures on the left, but the person toward the middle is touching some type of tool which might indicate her identity (though the image isn't good enough for me to know what this is).Often the title of the painting is also a way to understand symbolism.  I can't seem to find the original so I don't have a title for this particular one just yet.  I'll have to get back to you on that.  🙂

I just saw that same link with the description to the painting and was going to link to it….but you beat me to it.  🙂  Not all paintings are going to contain this much symbolism, but Christian artwork has a long tradition upon which to draw from so it's more prevalent there.  Millais was one of the Pre-Raphaelites, a group of painters of Christian subjects in the 19th century.  I'm not sure if the veil on Mary's head has any special meaning (she was traditionally depicted with a veil), and I don't know if St. Joseph had a particular connection to the color red.  But that blog link contains information on some of the other neat elements, such as the cross shape formed by the vertical crack in the wall and the horizontal saw handle.  I hadn't noticed that at first.  With some artwork the references are even more subtle or difficult to understand.