Materials by form
Damask
Damast
initial version
In Semper's understanding a damask is "ein Brokat ohne Gold" (see Ms_216_230). This is very different from how most specialists today would describe it and might well have been different to how Semper's contemporaries thought of it. A damask today is single colour material, in which the motif is woven by the alteration in the structure of the weave. Whether a damask is a type of brocade is debatable. Some specialists will say that brocade for them is such when a different colour is used in the weft.