Charles-François Daubigny rendered the waterwheel at the center of this print with just a few lines, emphasizing its movement over precise details. Waterwheels are an early example of a renewable resource, generating power from flowing water. They were often used in this period to operate flour mills. Like the waterwheel, the cliché-verre (glass plate) printmaking technique relies on a renewable natural resource. To make these prints, Charles-François Daubigny used a needle to draw the image onto a piece of painted glass. Then, he placed the glass on top of a sheet of lightsensitive photographic paper and exposed it to sunlight. The places where the artist scratched away the coating on the glass darkened to form the image. He reversed the image by flipping over the pane of glass.