Patent ID: 7742031

Claim:
A display device, comprising: a display panel with pixels which are arranged in two dimensions, each of the pixels being constituted by an element capable of effecting a display through control of transmittance or reflection of light; scanning means for carrying out first scanning on the pixels sequentially in a first direction of the display panel so as to set the pixels to respective display states according to information to be displayed by the pixels; and illumination means for illuminating the individual pixels while scanning in a direction same as a direction of the first scanning, with intensity of light which increases and subsequently decreases but does not become completely dark to emit light with an intensity lower than during illuminating period even after decrease of intensity, wherein the scanning means carries out a second scanning on the pixels sequentially in the first direction so as to initialize some of the pixels which have changed the display states thereof in the first scanning; and the illumination means controls the illumination so as to reduce the intensity of light in the first scanning to a relatively small value in synchronism with the second scanning carried out by the scanning means.