Apropos photo

by Patrick J. Loughren/Shadyside
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Letters to the editor
Monday, November 6, 2006

I enjoyed Diana Nelson Jones' Oct. 20 article "Guyasuta Reunited with Washington" discussing artist James West's magnificent bronze sculpture depicting a meeting between Seneca leader Guyasuta and George Washington that took place hundreds of years ago. At the meeting, Guyasuta sought out, and perhaps thought he had received, Washington's assurances that the Proclamation of 1763, which restricted white settlement west of the Allegheny, would not be broken.

I was drawn to one of Darrell Sapp's pictures of the sculpture (which will be displayed in a park along Grandview Avenue on Mount Washington). The photo shows artist James West standing beside his creation, hoist ropes around the figure of Washington -- almost as if it were a noose.

I couldn't help but appreciate the irony. Some would say that the noose was meant for Guyasuta, who hung himself by trusting Washington, for whom he had served as a guide and beside whom he had fought in the French & Indian war.

Upon reflection, however, perhaps the noose is rightfully placed around Washington's neck. Washington reported that he and Guyasuta left the meeting "as friends" which can be reasonably interpreted to indicate that he gave Guyasuta the assurances he was seeking. Perhaps the noose symbolizes the depth of darkness Washington felt as he looked Guyasuta in the eye and lied, and would later feel as Guyasuta's lands were overrun by white settlers, and his people slaughtered.

Treaties are made, and broken. Great men live and die. But artists and their art live forever and serve, perhaps, as the most accurate historians among us.