Religious art
The Holy Family - I
The Holy Family (St Joseph with the Virgin Mary and the Child) was an iconographic resource that became popular in the Renaissance, but already it existed in germ in the Nativities of the Middle Ages. One spread in the art of the Counter-reformation, that it stimulated the worship to the Holy Family.
1.The Holy Family (in strict sense)
Habitually the Virgin is represented giving the breast to her son in the first plane. In background, with minor protagonism, to the right or to the left, is represented St. Joseph, which seems to be pendeinte of offering more food to the child (fruits, especially) or enclosedly flowers or a branch of cherries. Only in a picture, that of Zurbarán, St. Joseph appears also in the first plane