In his graphic novel Pyongyang, Guy Delisle dutifully sketches various propaganda posters he comes across in the North Korea capital. His art is always outstanding except for one detail: He fudges the Korean language. He makes it up. In fact, it's tough to tell sometimes whether Delisle knows much of anything about Korea or Korean art.

For an authoritative look at art in the totalitarian state, turn instead to Jane Portal's The Cult of Kim:Art Under Control in North Korea (Reaktion Books, $35, 192 page). Portal combines a clear and concise overview of the politics and history of North Korea with an examination of its art. She notes that in spite of the nationalistic ideology of Juche, or self-reliance, North Korean art is essentially derivative. A statue of Kim Il Sung looks just like statues of Stalin or Saddam; the Arch of Triumph, meanwhile, is a slightly larger version of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, itself based on a Roman design.

Art in service of the state tends to have similar characteristics, Portal argues. It's grand in scale and realistic in style, occasionally idealistic, and always "educational." Over 60 years, this has produced in Korea such a high concentration of Socialist art that "Pyongyang as a city provides a kind of theatrical or film set for the socialist state." With its many beautifully colored reproductions and photos, Art Under Control might cause readers to wonder -if only for a moment - whether this is such a bad thing.

Brendan Wolfe