PURPOSE: To prevent picture quality in the peripheral part of a picture display area from being dropped and to improve sharply the reliability of a liquid crystal picture display formed by sealing liquid crystal between two bases by forming an opposite common electrode only in the picture display area.

CONSTITUTION: Signal potential selected by an element 5 is impressed to a picture element electrode 4, a potential difference between the impressed potential and the potential of the opposite common electrode 1 is impressed to the liquid crystal 6 and the driving state of the liquid crystal 6 is changed in accordance with the potential difference to display a picture. Since the potential levels of the opposite common electrode 1 are different in the inside and outside of the picture display area, the driving states of the liquid crystal 6 are also different in both the areas and the liquid in the interface part of both the areas does not execute normal driving. Thereby, no electric field is impressed to the liquid crystal on the outside of the image display area and the opposite common electrode 1 is formed only in the image display area as the shown structure, so that the picture quality in the peripheral part of the image display area can be prevented from being dropped and the reliability of the device can be sharply improved.