as b when the light absorber 15 is not present the luminescent brightness b and reflectance r of the el element with the light absorber 15 are given as follows b tb and r t 2 r according to the decrease of transmittance t the reflectance r is decreased while the luminescent brightness b is also decreased therefore the transmittance t should be optimized as follows when the practical range of the transmittances t is considered an upper limit tmax thereof is u221a r r 70 since the reflectance r is preferably decreased to 1 2 of the reflectance r and a lower limit tmin is given 10 as a ratio of the minimum luminescent brightness bmin 10 cd m 2 in this embodiment to the luminescent brightness b 100 cd m 2 in this embodiment the wavelength dispersion of transmittance of the light absorber 15 however is preferably less than u00b1 10 so as to obtain substantially uniform contrast the light absorber 15 of this embodiment suppresses visible light reflectance to 4 to 7 as indicated by the curve b of fig4 as a result the contrast of the el element can be kept high as the reflectance at the region b is substantially equal to that at the region a with the use of the light reflector 12 unlike the conventional el element the pattern of the back electrodes cannot be seen as a result the display quality is quite improved the present invention is not limited.