Cheap Thrills at the Glasmuseum Passau — Outrageous, Over-the-Top Decorative Glass.

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

Spotted at the labyrinthine Glasmuseum Passau — wonderfully outrageous, phantasmagoric decorative glass. Gotta share it with you. Take a look. Cheap thrills.

Yeah. Yeah. I’m definitely indulging in a bit of smug irony here. The folks who created, appreciated — and paid for — these concoctions no doubt took them quite seriously as high decorative art in very good taste. But I’m a denizen of the twenty-first century, born in the less-is-more mid-twentieth century. So if I love these things, it’s precisely because they are so outrageously over-the-top — and in some cases, gorgeous.

You’re seeing these pictures because Jon and I took in the Glasmuseum at Passau during a river trip last month. More about that travel adventure up the Danube and down the Rhine in the days and weeks to come.

More glass at “Dale Chihuly’s Glass –Fine Art? Kitsch? Or Both?”  Mosaic art at “A Berkeley Spin on an Ancient Art.”

Decorative Glass Historicism Style

Art Nouveau – Jugenstil Glass

Mid-Nineteenth-Century Decorative Glass