Art Firsts: The Story of Art in 30 Pioneering Works

by Nick Trend

Overview

The story of art is not always the story of art-historical 'isms' and complex academic debate. The real history is often the story of some very simple firsts - the first time an artist painted themselves, the first time someone painted a smile, the first actual place to be depicted, the first feminist artwork, the first anti-war work.

Art evolves and revolutionises itself through these simple - but ground-breaking - creative leaps. Art Firsts brings together 30 of these pioneering firsts to piece together an original approach to looking at and appreciating art, as well as understanding where it has come from and how it relates to you. Each first is approachable and engaging, while each work is simply and satisfyingly explained. Every work is also fully illustrated, and its significance is shown through images of the subsequent artists directly inspired by them. Art Firsts offers a refreshing and fascinating narrative for those curious about why so-called 'masterpieces' are so important and how the story of art can be boiled down to flashes of fascinating brilliance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781399601436
Publisher:	Laurence King Publishing
Publication date:	06/20/2023
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	1,007,816
Product dimensions:	6.15(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Nick Trend is a journalist and art historian. As Chief Culture Editor for the travel desk of the Daily Telegraph, he has spent nearly three decades writing about the world's art treasures and has produced guides to many of the greatest museums and art collections. He has also worked on the curatorial staff at the National Gallery in London and has a degree in English Literature from Cambridge and a PhD in Art History from the University of East Anglia.

Editorial Reviews

05/08/2023

Telegraph culture editor Trend debuts with an engrossing survey of paintings from the past 700 years that helped to redefine “what art was for and how to make it” by showcasing a new technique, trend, or idea. Antonello da Messina’s 1470 Portrait of a Young Man featured the first smile in a portrait—uncontroversial to the modern viewer, Trend notes, but unheard-of in the 15th century, when portraits depicted kings or noblemen who projected authority through “uniformly serious” gazes. The first jealous lover showed up in Diego Velázquez’s 1630 Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan, in which the sun god informs Vulcan of his wife’s infidelity. In the 1540s, Titian deviated from the typical “smooth, polished” painting style by using visible brushstrokes “to draw our attention to the hand of the artist,” while Pablo Picasso’s 1907 Les Demoiselles D’Avignon was the first to render “distorted” bodies, helping to pave the way for cubism. Trend expertly situates each artistic breakthrough within its sociocultural moment and includes a well-balanced mix of the famous (The Birth of Venus) and the obscure (Sofonisba Anguissola’s The Chess Game), even though he admits that the selection is constrained by its Eurocentric focus. This is perfect for the art history–curious who want to learn more without hitting the museum. Photos. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"This is perfect for the art history-curious who want to learn more without hitting the museum." – Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher