An illumination device is provided which can reduce a movement blur and a tailing phenomenon on a motion picture display while a drop in display brightness is suppressed, and which can suppress power consumption, can be made small and light, and can prolong the lifetime, and a liquid crystal display device using the same is provided. A light source control part of a control circuit synchronizes a latch pulse signal outputted from a gate driver control part to a gate driver, and outputs light emission control signals to respective light source power supply circuits. The respective light source power supply circuits change emission states of cold cathode fluorescent lamps to one of a first to a third emission states on the basis of the inputted light emission control signals, and illuminate an LCD panel from a rear surface of a display area. A first stage emission state is a non-lighting state, a second stage emission state is a maximum lighting state in which maximum lighting brightness is obtained, and a third emission state is an intermediate lighting state in which brightness of about one half of the second stage emission state is obtained.