Abstract: A full color, liquid crystal display device is disclosed having two optical paths, the first for long (red) and medium (green) wavelength regions of the visible light spectrum, and the second for the short (blue) wavelength region of the visible light spectrum. The two optical paths and their properties are nominally matched to the characteristics of the chromatic and luminance processing channels of the human visual system. The two-path device generates two separate, spatially coherent color images using two liquid crystal light valve image forming sources, without the use of color filters typically found in full color displays. The two images are combined by additive spatial superposition to produce a single, full-spectrum, composite color image. In one embodiment, individual red and green light components from an efficient, patterned backlight of individual red and green light emitters are coupled by a light coupling lens array to respective display pixels in the liquid crystal light valve.