The Underpainter

reading some of the other reviews was disturbing. so she doesn't follow typical novel plot structure - so what? it's always refreshing when someone steps out of the box most fiction writers have been hiding in. this is a beautifully written and engaging book. i looked forward to reading it every night - and i can't say that about many books.

Don't mistake "The Underpainter" for an airy fairy novel with a soft underbelly for its languid pastel coloured prose belies a diamond hard centre. In this beautifully evocative 1997 winner of the Governor General Book Award, Jane Urquhart pierces the cerebral exterior of successful modernist artist Austin Fraser to reveal a cold callous soul, whose inability to give or receive love leads to unconscious acts of cruelty to those closest to him. Only upon reflection as an old man does he acknowledge his part in their fate but he has only memories to taunt not console him. Sara, his model and lover of many years, proves to be nothing more than a handy object holding a mirror to his own soul. She doesn't really exist for him, hence when they break up, he looks back upon a relationship spanning fifteen summers, not fifteen years. Not surprisingly, the fox in Sara's garden - a metaphor for Sara's inner self - doesn't exist in his mind simply because he has never seen it. When his mentor Rockwell critiques his paintings, it turns out to be an indictment of the painter himself. Austin is furious but finally unable to deny Rockwell's judgement. Vivian, heartless and vain, is Austin's spiritual twin in the novel. They are an anathema to George and Augusta, whose lives are deeply rooted in reality. George is also an artist, but unlike Austin, doesn't despise industry but works in his father's china shop and has survived the war. Augusta is a farm girl, warm, practical and disciplined, and the perfect partner for George until Vivian, with Austin's help, re-enters their lives one evening with devastating result. "The Underpainter" brilliantly exposes the selfishness of art for art's sake. It is a chilling reminder that art unless tempered by humanity ultimately conceals more than it reveals. Jane Urquhart is a tremendous novelist. "The Underpainter" is a gorgeously written and incandescent piece of work that leaves an indelible impression long after it's read.

I found Jane Urquhart's novel to be quite compelling and well-written. Being an artist myself, I was eager to read a novel whose main character was an artist. The author captured the way in which art (any art) training is abjectly consuming at the expense of individual development. Artists and musicians tend toward the egocentric . . . partly because of the intensity of their training. Austin certainly fell into that category. I was also pleased that Ms. Urquhart was able to depict with sensitivity the effects of trauma on the human psyche. She was not only sensitive but very graphic if one was able to travel with her during the story's telling. It is rare to find such idiosycratic topics dealt with in the context of a novel much less to find them dealt with really well. The most compelling thing about the novel, however, is the warmth and compassion that she develops and portrays in her characters. In spite of their very human frailties, they are lovable if not always likeable. I look forward to reading other Jane Urquhart works!An artist/musician/reader

an amazing novel. the narrator- Austin Fraser is cruel, vain, afraid, human. this novel depicts his story- the story of a man who was afraid of his own self. the story of the underpainter. the artist who flooded the underpaiting in his art with his own life, his melancholy, his passions, his all, then blurring it out. the plot takes erratic jumps all over a half century, yet most of the story takes place during the '20s and '30s. this book tells the story of Austin's life. it tells how many of the special, tender relationships in his life ended, either gradually, or abruptly. it tells of this man's struggles, his passions, his failures. it tells of how he ran away from happiness in the face of his own fear and vanity. the plot is filled to overflow with his life, and the lives of those who came to know him, those who's lives intertwined with his own, or not at all. those who's lives Austin kept carefully stored away in his photographic memory. all throughout the book he tells of how well he remembers it all, how picturesquely it is all stored in this now old man's mind, so well he could paint it. relationships spanned over decades, people whom he's pushed away, people who died far away, yet right before his eyes. ghosts of the past, his own and others'. this is the story of Austin Fraser.

"The Underpainter" is a very beautifully written book...as it should be as it is about an artist looking bakc on his life and the love he left behind; and should have held on to. It is a book full of beautiful imagery and would appeal to even those who do not now anything about art...the story was very interest keeping and the characters were fleshed out quite nicely. A all round pleasant read.