I was very curious since I had never seen the painting before, so thank you because I enjoyed seeing it. ;DThe veil is defining  a ” ghost role” in a complex society, not overly stated but it represents the feelings of a community. Mary is under male protection, she is valued although she does not hold a dominant position in society, she does in the household.The color red, I have to wonder, if it is Sir John Everett's sense of the symbolism we need to look at?Romans at the time of Christ would have associated red with love and fertility, brides were traditionally wrapped in a red/orange veil “the flammeum”. I have no reason to think that a Hebrew carpenter would be wearing red, even though the family may have been more than simple folk, I cannot see a context for a Jew to wear red. Please correct me. In the time of Anglo Saxons, red protects against evil , trees, warriors, weapons and animals were painted red to endow them with magical properties.This is gleaned from “Encyclopedia of Signs & Symbols” by Mark O' Connel and Raje Airey

I think that there is a limit to symbolic values and if we try to read too much into certain elements we'll go astray.  When is a red tunic simply a red tunic?  When does something just represent the artist's preference?  I'm not saying that Joseph's shirt does not have symbolic value, but that it doesn't necessarily have to.  Iconographic analysis (done in the way of Panofsky) ultimately requires textual evidence to make conclusions (artist's writings, title of painting, etc.).  Otherwise we could try to “read” symbolism into any object.  Also, we would need to know how Millais understood any symbolic value of red.  Even if the color was symbolic to the Jews, if Millais did not know this, or he was not following in any tradition which took from the Jewish interpretation, red wouldn't be representative to this in the painting (unless we knew Millais' specific meaning.And one more thing – I think your interpretation of the veil is not really iconography, but rather interpretation using a psychoanalytic or feminist approach (both of these are legitimate approaches to the study of art).  But what you say is interesting, and could very well be true.

Donnie, I don't see why.  It's one way of looking into the minds of people who lived in days past, which is some of what you do anyway.  And much of Christian iconography deals with references from the Bible which you might enjoy. 

I don't think that artists are on par with theologians in terms of explaining Scripture from a technical point of view, but they definitely do have a way of illuminating it for the soul of man to understand better.  In the end I think each has different roles to play.  But they can complement one another.Also, I think that the familiarity with art history is good for historians in general.  They don't have to be able to dissect paintings (like we did here) or architecture, but they should know how art was viewed in society, how art influenced society, who the major players were, etc. (this will be more important in some locations and time periods than others).  Do you agree?