Imagine you’re an artist, standing in front of a blank, white canvas. Pressure’s on! Now imagine that the "canvas" is actually wet plaster, and you have to color it before it dries. That’s the shrinking window of time the fresco artist has to commit his pigments.

Fresco artists pre-design their works, transferring sketches to the damp plaster via perforated sketches called "cartone" — that’s where we get the word "cartoon" — and then working quickly so that pigments dissolve into the plaster substrate and are locked into place. A fresco can last hundreds of years, such as the Sistine Chapel ceiling, looking pretty good, and frescoes are the medium of choice for large public works. The downside? They’re not only attached to buildings, but at times they also are the building. Awkward.

OK, that’s it for today’s art lesson. The reason this comes up is that today a small group of University of Hawaii at Manoa art folks are dedicating newly restored frescoes at the renovated campus administration building called Hawaii Hall.

"They’re painted on plaster that is on canec, which is a bagasse building product made from sugar cane," said UH-Manoa art instructor Laura Ruby, who discovered the frescoes while researching campus art. "They were stored in a little room in the art building and in Frear Hall. Because they were on these canec sheets, they were easy to move — but also incredibly fragile. They can only be lifted vertically, or they’ll crack."

Who painted them? Ruby’s research indicated that in 1949, Art Department Chairman Ben Norris invited French artist Jean Charlot to paint a fresco at Bachman Hall on campus. Charlot fell in love with the islands and stayed, teaching fresco techniques. Some of the students — and established artists — he taught included Juliette May Fraser, Sueko Kimura, David Asherman, Richard Lucier and Raymond E. Brose. This burst of fresco creativity lasted until 1953, so the Hawaii Hall works date from those four years.

"Most of them aren’t signed, and we tried to compare each piece to an artist’s other work. This one, for example" — pointing out a relaxed grouping of ancient Hawaiians watching birds soar — "sure looks like Juliette May Fraser’s style. Others, though, we can only say were done under Charlot’s guidance."

Ruby applied for a Associated Students of the University of Hawaii grant to cover materials. With advice from UH-Manoa fresco instructor Don Dugal, she cleaned and restored each piece.

"You can’t wash them, because that might grind in dirt," said Ruby. "Color matching is difficult because they dry a different shade. I also colored the sides of the pieces, sealing the canec." Carpenters and designers such as Dave Landry in the Art Department shop created the wood and Plexiglas protective frames, and the works were installed in Hawaii Hall, primarily in public hallways.

Most are thoroughly and respectfully Hawaiian. "Charlot’s passionate, warm embrace of Hawaiian culture shows in these works," said Ruby. "Look here, depictions of ancient Polynesian voyaging, years before the Hawaiian Renaissance came into being!"

One piece, showing a nude model in a life-drawing class surrounded by bored art students, is simply funny, and Ruby discovered the work was originally larger. "Some of these frescoes are simply broken off, and we have no idea what happened to the rest. No one here today has any memory of when these were created."

True to modern times, however, Ruby has already received a complaint about the nude figure.