In Reynolds' Holy Families, the Mother and Child are painted with all the skill of a modern artist and look as human as his portraits of the Duchess of Devonshire and her baby.

It is no longer possible to think of them as anything but portraits of the models whom Reynolds employed for his picture.
Another method that modern artists have sometimes adopted in painting sacred subjects, is to imitate the faulty drawing and incomplete representation of life which are present in the art of the Old Masters.
But this conscious imitation of bygone ignorance beguiles no one who has once felt the charm of the painters before Raphael.
Reynolds' great contemporary, Gainsborough, has been called 'a child of nature.' He would have liked to live in the country always and paint landscapes.

He did paint many of his native Suffolk, but in his day landscapes were unsaleable, so he was driven to the town and to portrait painting to make a living.

Less than Reynolds a painter of character, Gainsborough reproduced the superficial expression of his sitters.
But he had so natural an eye for grace and beauty, that his portraits always please.

He did not attempt Reynolds' wide range of subjects or the same difficulties of pose.