A reflective liquid crystal projection apparatus 14 is composed of a light source 2, a polarizing plate 16A for incident light, a reflective liquid crystal element 8, another polarizing plate 16B for reflected light that is disposed in the cross Nicol relation with the polarizing plate 16A and a phase difference compensating plate 18 disposed between the reflective liquid crystal element 8 and the other polarizing plate 16B. The reflective liquid crystal projection apparatus 14 projects a picture image formed in the reflective liquid crystal element 8 on a screen 12 through a projection lens 10. The phase difference compensating plate 18 has no anisotropy in a plane parallel direction and a larger refractive index in the plane parallel direction than another refractive index in the thickness direction, and is disposed with being slightly tilted with respect to the reflective liquid crystal element 8. Accordingly, a picture image high in brightness and high in black and white contrast ratio can be projected on the screen 12.