At the outset of his career he occupied himself mostly with landscapes and paintings of animals, executed with extraordinary detail in imitation of the prevailing taste of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; but in 1857, while on a visit to the West of England, he made his first attempts as a sea-painter.
The manners and sentiments of the 15th century are made to harmonize with the classical legends after the fashion of the Italian pre-Raphaelite painters, who equipped Jewish warriors with knightly lance and armour.
Indeed, the publication of this little volume bore immediate fruit in introducing its author to various men of letters, among whom was Dante Gabriel Rossetti, through whose offices Patmore became known to Holman Hunt, and was thus drawn into the eddies of the pre-Raphaelite movement, contributing his poem "The Seasons" to the Germ.
An architect, he was perhaps the leading apostle of Victorian medievalism, along with William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelite painters.
When the Victorian part was built there was a gothic revival and the angels are almost Pre-Raphaelite.