How to show only 1 post from a specific category on the front-page

Question

I think I understand your questions, so here’s how I would achieve what I think you are looking to do.

The function is set up so that you can send it any category slug or ID and how many posts you’d like to retrieve from that category.

EDIT: I removed the_permalink() because I actually meant get_permalink() but mistakenly referred to the_permalink() instead.

<?php function wpse_114835_cat_latest_post($cat = null, $posts = 1) {
    //check for valid number of posts
    if(!is_int($posts)) {
        $posts = 1;
    }

    //set number posts
    $args = array(
        'numberposts' => $posts,
        'nopaging' => 1
    );

    //check what kind of category info we were sent
    if(isset($cat)) {
        //category id
        if(is_int($cat)) {
            $args['cat'] = $cat;
        //category slug
        } elseif(is_string($cat)) {
            $args['category_name'] = $cat;
        }
    }

    //get posts specified
    $cat_posts = get_posts($args);

    //return posts object
    return $cat_posts;
} ?>

You can add that function to your theme’s functions.php file and then you can just call it from your template file, like so: $art_posts = wpse_114835_cat_latest_post('art');.

Getting permalink: to get the permalink, send the post ID to the get_permalink() functions, like get_permalink($art_posts[0]->ID);

Getting excerpt: the excerpt is part of the post object echo $art_posts[0]->post_excerpt;

If you want to display the excerpt with the [...] at the end or run it through any filters your theme or plugins might have set up for excerpts, you’ll want to either a) set this post as the new global $post object so that you can use methods like the_excerpt() or b) create your own excerpt modification method that will trim down and append whatever you’d like.

Using your HTML from above, your template would look something like this:

<div class="col-block-last">
    <h2>
        <span class="bold">art</span> <span class="font-condensed">blog</span>
    </h2>

    <?php $art_posts = wpse_114835_cat_latest_post('art');

    echo $art_posts[0]->post_excerpt; ?>

    <a href="https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/114835/<?php echo get_permalink($art_posts[0]->ID); ?>">Read more</a>
</div>

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