Georges Marçais ( Rennes , 11 March 1876 – Paris , 20 May 1962) was a French orientalist , historian, and scholar of Islamic art and architecture who specialized in the architecture of North Africa .
5-662: He initially trained as a painter and writer but after visiting his brother, William Marçais (1872–1956), an orientalist who directed a school in Algeria, he turned instead to scholarly studies. After writing his thesis on Berbers in North Africa, he was a professor at the University of Algiers (1919–44; during the French occupation of Algeria ) and wrote numerous books and articles. One of his main overall contributions to
10-468: Is still considered one of the standard works on this subject. This biographical article about a French academic is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . William Mar%C3%A7ais William Ambroise Marçais (6 November 1872, Rennes – 1 October 1956, Paris ), was a French Orientalist , particularly noted as an expert on the Maghrebi Arabic dialects. William Marçais
15-520: The same year he assumed the position of director of the madrasa of Tlemcen in French Algeria . In 1904 he became director of the madrasa of Algiers , five years later advanced to the position of inspector general of the education system for the native population, and in 1913 he was named as director of the École supérieure de langue et littérature arabe at Tunis . In 1916, he returned to Paris, where he became teacher of vulgate Arabic at
20-552: The scholarly study of Islamic art/architecture was to highlight the architecture of the western Islamic world – the Maghreb and Al-Andalus – as its own regional style (popularly called "Moorish" architecture ) which could be distinguished from the artistic traditions in the more eastern parts of the Islamic world. One of his books, L’Architecture musulmane d’occident: Tunisie, Algérie, Maroc, Espagne et Sicile , published in 1954,
25-713: Was born in Rennes in 1872. After finishing the local lycée , he studied law at the University of Rennes . Soon after his successful graduation and as he was contemplating a career in the diplomatic service , his lecture of the works of Ernest Renan turned him towards the study of the Semitic languages . In 1894 he therefore went to Paris and enrolled in the École des langues orientales , where he studied Literary Arabic , Maghrebi Arabic , Turkish and Persian under Hartwig Derenbourg and Octave Houdas . In 1898 he successfully defended his doctoral thesis on Islamic law. In
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