(b Andelfingen, nr Winterthur, 28 Feb 1798; d Zurich, 17 March 1877). Swiss painter. He first studied under his father and then in Paris in 1822 in the studio of Jean-Victor Bertin. As a student he concentrated on unusual lighting effects in his landscape paintings well before they became a hallmark of the precursors of the Impressionists. In 1824 at the Salon in Paris he first saw paintings by Constable. On a trip to Italy in 1828 he did studies en plein air as preliminary sketches for his studio paintings. His early paintings emphasize brilliant colour, low horizons and scientific observation of cloud formations in a manner similar to Constable’s studies, which he actually saw on visits to England in 1832 and 1835. Like Eugène Boudin, Ulrich was interested in poetic evocations of sun, water and effects of atmosphere rather than in the precise delineations of topography typical of Swiss art of that period. From 1824 he showed regularly at the Salons in Paris and in 1837 he returned to Zurich. Because the Swiss public was reluctant to accept his freer, more adventurous style, he often painted traditional landscapes for exhibitions (e.g. Port of Rotterdam, 1844; Berne, Kstmus.), while at the same time executing more innovative charcoal drawings (e.g. Storm at Sea, 1849; Zurich, Ksthaus) that resemble those of Turner. In his paintings of the 1850s he was able to combine conventional compositions and sensitive lighting effects, as in Waterfall in the Forest (1853; Zurich, Ksthaus) and Moonlight in Sorrento (1858; Winterthur, Kstmus.), both of which are poetic images removed from the banality of similar themes treated by his contemporaries.

• Ulrich, Johann Jakob
  • Koller, Rudolf