Abstract Painting can be said to have started with Wasily Kandinsky who was among the first to consider the idea of the painting itself being its own subject. A lot of the original idea was to create a visual art that was the creative equivalent of music. With theosophy and esotericism in general being in vogue at the time, efforts were being made to create interrelationships between the disciplines of the various senses so that there efforts made to make musical equivalents of visual art and visual equivalents of musical sensations.

Additionally there was a strong impulse to move away from the representation of physical sense objects and toward a more inwardly and intuitive direction of one's artistic efforts. In his Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Kandinsky attempted to offer meanings to basic shapes, forms, and colors. Another Russian, Kasamir Malevich. who is the father of Suprematism, an early abstract art movement which created the term Non-Objective Art which referred to art that had no references to the world of physical nature. The Dutch artists Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg started the movements called Neo Plasticism (The New Plastic Art) and De Stijl (The Style) in the 1920's. Mondrian wrote extensively on the topic and Van Doesburg, an architect, was instrumental in what would become Modernist architecture and the design of everyday objects like fabrics, chairs, light fixtures, etc. all of which is based in the clean pared down aesthetics of abstraction and non-objective art developed  at that time.

This led to the formation of the Bauhaus and at the same time in Russia Constructivism was developing which is the basic term for much of the art and architecture since that time. During the Dada period Hans Arp was creating an organic style of abstract art and Miro was developing his own form of Abstraction though inventing a language of forms which he used recurrently throughout his career. Kurt Schwitters made his most influential contribution in the area of collage, all of which tended toward abstract relationships. Other early movements that had strong abstract elements include synthetic Cubism, Orphism, Futurism, Purism, etc.

Between the world wars there was a great deal of experimentation between the two poles of organic and geometric styles of abstraction. After world war two, due to the position of dominance and good will held by the United States, the style called Abstract Expressionism and the New York School came to the foreground. In the 60's Abstract art was in full bloom all over the world and was expressed in a number of different art movements such as Op Art, Minimalism, etc. At this point Abstract and Non-objective art is widely practiced by a large number of artists from all over the world.

This only covers things with a very broad brush and in no way scratches the surface on the great diversity and profundity of the fascinating work that has been done in the field of abstract art to date but this should give enough of a back ground to begin to see where Mr. Touchon's work fits into the picture. Over the years Touchon has touched on just about every noteworthy theme and painter within the pantheon of abstract art to date.

Web Site: http://touchon.com/