To merely explain the picture would be to observe and understand it in its physical state alone. Objects exist in more than just a physical state. When Michael Baxandall says that,"we explain remarks about pictures," he is speaking of the historian's duty to observe and understand an object in more than its physical state. The 'remarks' so to speak are the effects that the non-physical state of the object has on an observer and his 'explanation' of those remarks would be the explanation of that non-physical state, and possibly bring about the understanding of why it caused said remarks.

The duality of an object is formed when the observer takes a physical object and attempts to translate it into a non-physical form. This is the historian's job, to research and understand the object so that they might translate it into a more understandable form. When the observer goes a step past merely observing the physical object and begins to look more in-depth, it becomes more than a physical object.

Much like the duality of an artifact, having physical aspects and non-physical aspects, the analysis of said object must have a sort of duality. It must have a strong base in undeniable, scientific fact (physical aspects) such as what the artifact is made of, and a fluid estimation of its significance and what it could communicate of its culture (non-physical aspects).

I would go as far to say that this isn't limited to the analysis of artifacts. Even objects that are created in the modern day, that can be looked at without the veil of uncertainty and guesswork that shrouds objects from the past, can communicate different things to different people. Therefore, earlier in the text when the author describes the type of object that historians seek to understand, those objects that communicate more than their physical form, it is reasonable to assume that all objects carry this form of duality.

Annotations from supplementary reading

But the machete bears an unusual character. It’s possible to conceive of it as a weapon, yes, but it’s also very much a tool—not altogether different from, say, a shovel. A human being could do a great deal of damage to another human being with a shovel; it is weighted enough, has an edge, and a long handle to allow for a very leveraged swing.Why is it that the machete is seen so differently? Both items could do serious damage to a person, however, I couldn't imagine a man being arrested for carrying a shovel over his arm.

benrperry Sep 5 Tools are fine things for workers, but politics dictates that violence be concentrated in the hands of the State, and dispensed by its agents. The slipperiness between innocuous utensil and deadly device represents the risk of insurrection. … More This brings forth the interesting symbolism of weapons being seen as a type of power. If workers are allowed to carry weapons then they posses some sort of power, a power that is meant to be held only by those in charge. It is this fear of the power, and subsequently that power falling into the wrong hands, that causes the line between tool and weapon to become so ill-defined: of course the worker must be able to carry tools but how powerful a tool can they posses before they should be considered dangerous and that tool be considered a weapon?

benrperry Sep 5 Looking at the cover now, it’s hard not to notice that one of the villainous figures looks a lot like Fidel Castro, and one of his comrades wields a machete. The machete isn't only seen as a weapon; it is a sinister one. Many fictional villains such as the one in the author's book are portrayed with machetes. In Haltman's introduction to American Artifacts, he describes objects as being not only a record of themselves in a physical sense, but also as carrying non-physical record of things like concepts and times with which they are associated. Because of their value as tools, many oppressed peoples, such as slaves and oppressed workers, had access to machetes and because of this the machete is the weapon that was used in many violent uprisings of workers and slaves in the past, such as the Philippine Revolution and the Haitian Revolution. The machete was also a weapon of choice in the horrors of the Rwandan Genocide. This past of cruelty and violence is imprinted upon machetes in exactly the way that Haltman describes.

source:(https://www.ukessays.com/essays/history/the-history-of-the-machete-history-essay.php)

benrperry Sep 5 I’m certainly not proud of this moment, but it does illustrate the machete’s ability to change quickly from a boy’s plaything to an instrument of violence. The machete carries with it a unique duality. Whereas guns are distinctly weapons and things like hoes are distinctly tools, the machete's purpose can change on a whim and the transition from tool to weapon is seamless, where as it would not be naturally easy for a hoe to be used as a weapon.

Once again, the example of the machete from "What Is a Machete, Anyway?" can be used here in order to understand the author's meaning. The machete is not the only object that signifies atrocities and and bloody revolutions. In the lead up to the Rwandan genocide, the citizens were forced to carry identification that classed them as either the dominant, or lesser ethnicity (much like the star of David during the Holocaust). Why is it that an ID is not as perceived in such a sinister way as the machete? Surely without it the genocide would have been hampered whereas, with all of the other weapons at the time, the lack of the machete could have easily been compensated for. The machete represents the atrocities in a different way than the identification papers did; the machete gives a clearer, realer look into the violence of the Rwandan genocide.

source: (http://www.history.com/topics/rwandan-genocide)

Earlier in the text, the author mentions the existence of different ways that an object can carry a non-physical aspect or concept; he explains that attention must be paid not only to what an object may signify but also how it signifies it. In this selection of text the author does his best to explain how he is able to determine the significance of objects with a proverbial blind eye. Understandably it is impossible to obtain a perfect understand of an artifact and all that it represents, however I feel that this slightly hypocritical. The author himself admits that there is a limitless number of way for objects to be read and then goes on to pigeonhole the way in which his students read objects, forcing them to look only at objects that he is able to read regardless of the student's possible connection with the object.

As described in "What is a Machete, Anyway?" by John Cline, the machete carries with it a number of cultures as well as a number of conceptual and abstract aspects of those cultures. In his article, John Cline speaks of the duality of the machete as both a tool and a weapon and the baggage that it carries from both classifications. He explains the importance of it as a symbol of activities such as banana farming in Jamaica as well as the imprint that it has left on human memory as being a weapon used in places like Cuba and Nicaragua and Costa Rica. He describes it as containing an abstract, symbolic political power because of this duality. It is both a tool used by farmers, and a weapon used by revolutionaries. It is more than a mere physical object. The concept of both the worker's tool and weapon is as present, and important, in a machete as its physical aspects

Here, Haltmann defines the word "object" in an archaeological sense. Throughout the text, this definition of "object" is what he will be referring to. It is important to have this definition of object in mind as the reader continues through the text as a key idea is presented in this statement: that objects record more than just the sum of their own physical parts, that objects carry with them an abstract, non-physical record of themselves, the people that created them, and the time and place in which they were created.

Once again the author alludes to the answer to his rhetorical question being within the contents of his collection of essays.

A rhetorical question that will be pondered by the collection of essays. This is previously alluded to in the beginning of the introduction when the author explains that the collection of essays all "exemplify the methodology they share." This 'methodology' is described two sentences later as "experiments in or elaborations of a[n]... approach to understanding things."

Prownian analysis is the first part of what has been named the "Prownian method," a method that is used to identify, analyze and categorize objects in historical archaeology. Prownian method consists of three steps: obsessively describe, guess at uses, and treat the object as fiction.

source: (https://mnmalone.wordpress.com/prownian-analysis/)

Kenneth Haltman, the author of this text, is a professor of Art History at the University of Oklahoma.

source: (http://www.ou.edu/finearts/visual-arts/programs/bachelor_of_art_in_art_history/kenneth_haltman.html)

The machete carries with it a unique duality. Whereas guns are distinctly weapons and things like hoes are distinctly tools, the machete's purpose can change on a whim and the transition from tool to weapon is seamless, where as it would not be naturally easy for a hoe to be used as a weapon.

The machete isn't only seen as a weapon; it is a sinister one. Many fictional villains such as the one in the author's book are portrayed with machetes. In Haltman's introduction to American Artifacts, he describes objects as being not only a record of themselves in a physical sense, but also as carrying non-physical record of things like concepts and times with which they are associated. Because of their value as tools, many oppressed peoples, such as slaves and oppressed workers, had access to machetes and because of this the machete is the weapon that was used in many violent uprisings of workers and slaves in the past, such as the Philippine Revolution and the Haitian Revolution. The machete was also a weapon of choice in the horrors of the Rwandan Genocide. This past of cruelty and violence is imprinted upon machetes in exactly the way that Haltman describes.

source:(https://www.ukessays.com/essays/history/the-history-of-the-machete-history-essay.php)

This brings forth the interesting symbolism of weapons being seen as a type of power. If workers are allowed to carry weapons then they posses some sort of power, a power that is meant to be held only by those in charge. It is this fear of the power, and subsequently that power falling into the wrong hands, that causes the line between tool and weapon to become so ill-defined: of course the worker must be able to carry tools but how powerful a tool can they posses before they should be considered dangerous and that tool be considered a weapon?

A human being could do a great deal of damage to another human being with a shovel; it is weighted enough, has an edge, and a long handle to allow for a very leveraged swing.Why is it that the machete is seen so differently? Both items could do serious damage to a person, however, I couldn't imagine a man being arrested for carrying a shovel over his arm.