Public outrage forced an artist to cancel the April 29 unveiling of his latest painting “The Truth,” which depicts President Obama posing like Jesus did on the cross with a crown of thorns on his head. Painter Michael D’Antuono, who had planned to show the work at New York’s Union Square Park on Obama’s 100th day in office, told National Review Online that he was surprised by the number of people who complained about the religious symbolism because he had intended it as only a political piece.

The idea of the piece, or the reaction that I’d hoped for, was to highlight our nation’s deep partisan divide and how our interpretation of the truth is really prejudiced by our political perspective and I think that to a large degree we are being manipulated by the media. I miss the old day when we just have the facts. Now we have pundits and spin and strategists.

I just thought that through that painting people would see different things. The right and the left would have different interpretations of it based on their political lens. But I have to admit I was very surprised that instead of that I got thousands of email complaining on the religious front. And that was not my intent at all. I wanted to create a dialog politically but not religiously. I didn’t mean to make fun of anybody’s religion; maybe I did so naively but I didn’t mean it that way. In the bible Jesus is The Truth and comparing Obama that way isn’t something I meant to do at all.