Proposed is a novel undercoating composition to form an undercoating layer interposed between the surface of a substrate and a photoresist layer with an object to decrease the adverse influences by the reflection of light on the substrate surface in the pattern-wise exposure of the photoresist layer to ultraviolet light without the undesirable phenomena of intermixing between layers and notching along with a large selectivity ratio in the etching rates between the patterned resist layer and the undercoating layer in a dry-etching treatment. The undercoating composition comprises (A) an ultraviolet absorber which is a benzophenone compound or an aromatic azomethine compound each having at least one unsubstituted or alkyl-substituted amino group on the aryl groups and (B) a crosslinking agent which is preferably a melamine compound having at least two methylol groups or alkoxymethyl groups bonded to the nitrogen atoms in a molecule in a weight proportion (A):(B) in the range from 1:1 to 1:10.