LANDSCAPE PAINTINGS AND POEMS

On his appointment as official painter to the Sumiyoshi Shrine, Hiromichi changed his name from Tosa to Sumiyoshi. Having painted with the Tosa school in Kyoto, he later went to live in Edo, where he founded his own Sumiyoshi school. He worked in the Yamato-e style and, together with his son Sumiyoshi Gukei, carried on the Tosa style under the Sumiyoshi name.

Yamato-e are paintings of Japanese subjects (Yamato being the old name for Japan), executed with Japanese sentiment and in the native Japanese style, in contradiction to Kara-e, painting in the Chinese style.