[2] His father was the lord (daimyō) of Himeji Castle in Harima Province.

Hōitsu, citing poor health as a reason, became a Buddhist priest in 1797,[5] and spent the last 21 years of his life in seclusion.

According to critic Robert Hughes, the core achievement in painting during the Edo period was the allusive and delicate work of the Rinpa artists; and in Hōitsu's large folding screen Flowers and Grasses of Summer and Autumn, he says, "you can almost feel the wind bending the rhythmical pattern of stems and leaves against their silver ground.

"[7] In another screen, Flowering Plants of Summer, Hughes suggested that Hoitsu "possessed epigrammatic powers of observation," as demonstrated in another screen, Flowering Plants of Summer, in which "the fronds bend and bow under the summer rain, weaving a delicate lattice of green against the now tarnished silver ground.

[9] Flowering Plants of Summer and Autumn (夏秋草図屏風) is a pair of two-folded byōbu folding screens made using ink and color on silver and gold-foiled paper.

The work depicts plants and flowers from the autumn and summer seasons, and it is considered one of his best paintings.

All three versions of the work were displayed together for the first time in seventy-five years in 2015, at the Kyoto National Museum exhibition "Rinpa: The Aesthetics of the Capital".