A liquid crystal device is constituted by a layer of a chiral smectic liquid crystal, a pair of substrates oppositely disposed to sandwich the liquid crystal and each provided with an electrode for applying a voltage to the liquid crystal, at least one of the substrates being provided with a uniaxial aligning axis for aligning the liquid crystal, and a polarizer disposed on at least one of the substrates. The liquid crystal has an alignment characteristic such that it is aligned to provide an average molecular axis to be placed in a monostable alignment state under no voltage application, is tilted from the monostable alignment state in one direction when supplied with a voltage of a first polarity at a tilting angle which varies depending on magnitude of the supplied voltage, and is tilted from the monostable alignment state in the other direction when supplied with a voltage of a second polarity opposite to the first polarity at a tilting angle, said tilting angles providing maximum tilting angles &bgr;1 and &bgr;2 formed under application of the voltages of the first and second polarities, respectively, satisfying &bgr;1>&bgr;2 or &bgr;1=&bgr;2. The liquid crystal layer in the liquid crystal device is set to have a refractive index anisotropy and a layer thickness giving a retardation under voltage application which is in an optimum retardation range determined based on an arrangement of the polarizer and a wavelength of light passing through the liquid crystal layer, thus improving a resultant transmittance.