Ru Ware · Sky After Rain

01The story

In the late Northern Song, the Ru kiln area produced tribute porcelain for the court for a limited period. Its wares are especially known for sky-blue, pale-blue and blue-green glazes. Song writers described the blue that appears when rain breaks and the sky opens, and that image became one of the most frequently quoted ways of naming the colour. The idea that agate was added to the glaze is a traditional explanation and appears in later discussion; body and glaze recipes and firing techniques remain a subject of research, so it should not be presented as the sole confirmed technical account. Glaze, body colour and kiln conditions all affect the final tone. This theme keeps those fine, uncertain shifts as restrained layers.

02Where the colours come from

The four levels map straight onto the object: moon white (where the glaze is thinnest), powder blue (where the glaze pools), sky blue (the main glaze colour) and incense ash (where the body is left bare). The accent is one step deeper than the main sky blue, preserving the glaze character while keeping links and focus visible on the pale ground.

03How the palette was built

The palette keeps the series-wide low saturation and narrow value range, while body text, secondary text and the accent retain comfortable contrast. Dividers use a slightly deeper blue-grey so edges remain visible. Text on primary buttons is checked against the final accent value.

04Sources and references

• LinkRu Ware (汝窑)↗Palace Museum ceramic referenceUsed to check the period in which Ru ware supplied the court, its forms and principal glaze colours.
• ArticleA Comparative Study of the Body and Glaze Recipes and Techniques of Ru Official and Folk Celadons from the Qingliangsi Kiln↗Palace Museum journal articleUsed to frame the evidence around body/glaze recipes and firing; the agate glaze explanation is treated as a tradition, not a settled sole explanation.
• ClassicA History of Chinese Ceramics (中国陶瓷史)Feng XianmingDates, glaze materials and craft background of the named Song kilns.
• ClassicYinliuzhai Shuoci (饮流斋说瓷)Ji Yuansou (Chen Liu), Qing dynastyA classic Qing-era discussion of porcelain that records how Ru and Jun glazes were described and appraised in the Ming and Qing periods.
• ClassicTaoya (陶雅)Chen Jieqi, Qing dynastyA catalogue of famous wares by form and glaze colour, useful for tracing how phrases such as “sky blue after rain” travelled.

05Credits and licence

Palette

Theme Atlas editorial team

Text

Theme Atlas editorial team

Graphics

Theme Atlas (original SVG)

Data licence

Palette data released under CC BY 4.0

Illustration licence

All illustrations are original SVGs; no third-party imagery is used.