The Water-mill

Contemporary reviewers credited many of Émile Reynaud’s works as suitable for use as educational material in teaching younger audiences about many aspects of everyday life. The Water-mill (1878) fits these criteria particularly well by depicting a young man manually manoeuvring the eponymous machine. The limited movement of the central figure is enhanced by the fast flow of the water and its ever-changing shape as it strikes the wheel. The fluidity of the liquid becomes the true focus of the animation, allowing Reynaud to explore techniques for depicting different substances in motion. Arguably, works such as this led educational resources to shift from static text and images towards multimedia forms.