One of the biggest hurdles we have to overcome if we want to understand the icon is our Western understanding of what an image is and how it functions and how this differs from the Byzantine understanding. And if we want to understand the icon for what it really is we need to set aside our Western assumptions and romantic notions and start thinking realistically, because that is how, as we will see, the Fathers understand the icon. This Byzantine realism is not to be confused with naturalism and what Western art historians refer to as realism (just as the abstraction in Byzantine art should not be confused with that in Modern Art).