Rating: 
Summary: A Very Beautifully Written Book
Review: "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.
Rating: 
Summary: unusually affecting
Review: Although the narrator is not the most likeable person, this book is so beautifully and honestly written that i found myself deeply involved in his life. This book is engaging and unusually true to human nature.
Rating:
Summary: The Underwhelmer
Review: As a painter, books about artists naturally appeal to me. But even with such a head start, "The Underpainter" became one of those novels I only finish reading by skipping from section to section, trying to catch sight of those threads of the story which still held my interest. "The Underpainter" is a fictional first-person memoir told in the voice of Austin Fraser, an elderly abstract artist looking back on his life as the 1970s draw to a close. With unusual locales such as Rochester, New York, and a Canadian mining town; with the requisite celebrity cameos, in the form of Robert Henri and Rockwell Kent; and with the potential for romantic conflict, when the same girl catches the eye of both Austin and his summertime friend George, the ingredients for a good story were probably there. In trying to figure out what went wrong, I'm inclined to cast the blame on the supporting characters. Austin in a different setting might still have come across as cold and uncaring, but his performance might have been more interesting on a different stage. His artistic education was credibly described, and his peculiar relationships with both his mother and his father were well explored. But George Kearns comes across as such an unambitious loser that he becomes unsympathetic, a trend that accentuates steadily right up to the book's conclusion. And we learn far, far more about George's lover Augusta Moffat than we really need to know - page after page describes her childhood before she ever crossed George and Austin's path, yet while her importance to the storyline is high, her actual protagonism is quite brief. On the other hand Sara, Austin's lover of fifteen years - fifteen summers, Austin would hasten to interject - never really comes alive. We never get even the slightest hint of why their relationship lasted so long. Was he just that good looking? Was she so plain no one else was interested in her? Jane Urquhart writes well, and in her hands Austin sometimes speaks with resonance. Ultimately, though, in my opinion this book was let down by the direction its plot took, spending far too much time on a mediocre parochial supporting cast and not enough showing us Austin's performance in the art world he is supposed to have succeeded in.
Rating: 
Summary: Suitable for those who don't know anything about art
Review: Austin Fraser is a minimalist painter and a most unlikely hero. Urquart writes this book as his autobiography towards the end of his life. He has betrayed some very loyal friends during his lifetime. He appears to have no emotions, an unfeeling man surrounded by people, places and events that evoke passion. He drains his friends in the furtherance of his art giving nothing of himself in return.
Rating:
Summary: Suitable for those who don't know anything about art
Review: Austin Fraser is a minimalist painter and a most unlikely hero. Urquart writes this book as his autobiography towards the end of his life. He has betrayed some very loyal friends during his lifetime. He appears to have no emotions, an unfeeling man surrounded by people, places and events that evoke passion. He drains his friends in the furtherance of his art giving nothing of himself in return.
Rating: 
Summary: beautiful prose, but story falls flat
Review: Austin, an American painter, looks back at his life, and the people whose lives are intertwined with his memories. George, the serious and thoughtful china-painter, Sara, his quiet summertime model and lover, Augusta, who was a nurse during the war, who tells him her life story in one night while sitting in a china hall. This contained some of the most beautiful writing I've ever read, and I've taken note of a dozen of the loveliest passages from the book. But as a whole, as a novel, I could barely finish. I had absolutely no sympathy for the protagonist, and the plot was unapparent to me until the last fraction of the book. As beautiful as those passages were, they weren't enough to keep me entertained through the rest of this novel. Writing style deserves 5 stars, characterization 3 stars, and plot and storyline 0.
Rating:
Summary: beautiful prose, but story falls flat
Review: Austin, an American painter, looks back at his life, and the people whose lives are intertwined with his memories. George, the serious and thoughtful china-painter, Sara, his quiet summertime model and lover, Augusta, who was a nurse during the war, who tells him her life story in one night while sitting in a china hall. This contained some of the most beautiful writing I've ever read, and I've taken note of a dozen of the loveliest passages from the book. But as a whole, as a novel, I could barely finish. I had absolutely no sympathy for the protagonist, and the plot was unapparent to me until the last fraction of the book. As beautiful as those passages were, they weren't enough to keep me entertained through the rest of this novel. Writing style deserves 5 stars, characterization 3 stars, and plot and storyline 0.
Rating:
Summary: Jane Urquhart's The Underpainter, a gem of a novel
Review: 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
Rating:
Summary: Brilliantly exposes the selfishness of the artist's world
Review: One way I measure a book is by how much it makes me think - and for how long after I've finished it. I first read this book two years ago, and still it haunts me. The characters are not especially sympathetic - least of all the artist - but what is disturbing is how well they are drawn from real life. The author has as remarkable an eye for character and human nature as a fine painter for his or her subject. I've recommended this book to many, but only to those who can appreciate a story of quiet depth. It's also a story that demands rereading.
Rating: 
Summary: Do not waste your time (or money)
Review: This book, in spite of the fact that it received the Governor General's Award for Fiction in 1997, is a complete waste of time. The talk about painting and art is incessant. The character development is minimal in spite of the books length. The last thirty pages of the story are moderately OK and, coupled with some of the earlier parts, PERHAPS would have made a decent short story. Quite frankly, the Governor General needs to read more if this is the best he (now she) can do.
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