Most humans have three types of cones, or photoreceptors, to perceive primary colors: red, blue, and green. However, there is a condition called tetrachromatism in which a person has a fourth photoreceptor. Artist Concetta Antico is tetrachromatic and can see up to 100 million colors. Concetta explains that she finds colors just by painting on wood using water, that whites are not really white to her, and that she can detect when her daughter is sick by the tone of her skin. Can we even imagine such an ability?
I have spent nearly three decades in front of different computers, which has allowed me to appreciate their evolution in color depth. We went from monochrome screens to 4 colors, then 16, 256, 65,536, 16.7 million, and there are already specifications that enable 16 bits per channel, which translates to a theoretical 281 trillion colors. Now... having access to that technological potential doesn't mean we can fully appreciate it. Just like our ears, the capacity of our eyes changes over time, but out there are people who are, ocularly speaking, simply very special. One of them is the artist Concetta Antico, who can see up to 100 million colors:
A Rare Superpower
Concetta explains that she has a condition (or state, if you will) called tetrachromatism. Unlike a standard human, Concetta has four photoreceptors instead of three, which multiplies by 100 her ability to interpret colors. One of the great challenges for the artist is, without a doubt, sharing this ability with others. When she was preschool age, Concetta painted wood using only water, since the reflection of light on the liquid generated a rainbow effect for her just as when she sees rain, snow, or fog. White is not white; instead, she observes a palette of whites. Concetta loves the color black, and on birds such as crows or starlings she can detect violet, blue, or emerald tones on their feathers.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BmZWHUiFKO9/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BmfLkqUFgXb/A Life in Color
Another striking aspect is that Concetta defines skin as multicolored. Someone blushing becomes very bright, and she also knows when her daughter is sick because her skin changes to a greenish yellow with hints of pale lilac. She loves eating blueberries for their colors, but the truth is she doesn't appreciate all of them. Concetta complains about the hardness of colors in the plastics she sees when visiting a store, and she admits that yellow stresses her. If she needs a break, all she does is close her eyes, but there is always some color that filters through her eyelids. And the best part is that Concetta is married... to a colorblind man! Sometimes the universe has a sense of humor.
