Artist Jac Maris (1900-1996) was commissioned by Titus Brandsma to create the stations for the Stations of the Cross park at the Bonifatius Chapel.
In 2004, sculptor Natasja Bennink (1974) created a man-sized sculpture in memory of Titus Brandsma in the park at the Bonifatius Chapel in Dokkum.

Sculptress Natasja Bennink created this man-sized statue in 2004 in memory of Titus Brandsma in the park near the Bonifatius Chapel in Dokkum. It is a counterpart to the martyr statue of St. Boniface at the same chapel. Bennink’s design is a bronze sculpture with recognizable features of Titus Brandsma. No reproduction of existing statues, known from many photographs, was chosen. It is a new creation, figurative, independent of existing Brandsma iconography and classic statues of saints. Titus stands not on a pedestal but barefoot on the ground. He is not depicted as a priest or professor, but as a suffering and contemplative human being. Not as a prisoner in Dachau, nor with the familiar glasses. It shows the one man in the concreteness of his earthly existence.

From the physical features of Father Titus, the artist makes a choice. This creates not a naturalistic but a spiritual portrait. The monk’s habit is marked only on the area of the legs, recalling the Carmelite mystic. The squinted eyes, arms and hands extended downward, the nakedness of the upper body: these are traits that refer to Christ himself as Man of Sorrows. This goes to the heart of Catholic iconology. The image of a “saint” allows the viewer to experience something of Christ, the one God. True images of saints are never reproductions of living persons. They show spiritual qualities. The statue was commissioned by the Diocese of GroningenLeeuwarden on the occasion of the 1250th anniversary of Boniface. (source: Sible Blaauw from: speak! May 2019)

Human beings are at the center of Natasja Bennink’s monumental bronze sculptures. She carefully studies the anatomy and proportions of her model and transfers them to clay. Once the basis is right, expression takes over; typical of her style are the free, raw touch and the deliberate reduction of forms. This creates images that deliberately transcend figuration. The human body functions as the carrier of an underlying concept, in which connection is often the common thread. Man connected to his time, woman connected to her body, lovers connected to each other in a kiss or residents connected to their community. They are layered images in which the universal becomes tangible while the individual remains visible.

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Natasja Bennink (b. 1974) was educated at Academie Minerva in Groningen and the Academy of Fine Arts in Athens. She lives and works in the former town hall of Ezinge, in Groningen. Bennink’s work is included in various museum collections, including those of the Drents Museum, Museum het Depot, National Sculpture Park De Havixhorst and Museum de Buitenplaats. Her sculptures can also be found in numerous places in public spaces. For the state hall of the province of Drenthe she made the stationary portrait ‘Onze Koning’, in Appingedam she immortalized five generations of kissing lovers, all residents of the city. The ‘Venus of Kloosterveen’ adorns Assen and in Dokkum stands the monument to the beatified priest Titus Brandsma.

Natasja is aware of her pioneering role as an artist. That is why she sometimes chooses themes that are a bit abrasive. She forces the viewer to look with different eyes. A recurring theme in her work is the “female gaze,” the woman seen through the eyes of a woman. Thus her Venus images are tough, self-conscious, proud, honest, sensual or vulnerable, but never ‘just’ beautiful. This can be experienced by some as recognizable and encouraging, by others as confrontational or provocative.

A kissing portrait of Bennink’s own grandparents has been placed in the UMCG hospital and as part of the cultural capital Leeuwarden-Fryslân 2018, she created the “Gallery of Frisians,” six portraits in bronze of six Frisians chosen by the Frisian Mienskip. Bennink exhibits regularly at home and abroad and has been associated with Galerie Van Campen & Rochtus in Antwerp since 2000. She teaches at the Wackers Academy in Amsterdam. (source: www.natasjabennink.nl/)

In 1925 the Brotherhood of Saint Boniface and Companions was founded in Dokkum, which wanted to make a pilgrimage site of Dokkum, the place where Boniface was murdered. Titus Brandsma was one of the members of the main board.
In 1926, the first national pilgrimage took place. In 1933, according to a design by architect Hendrik Willem Valk, a chapel was built and consecrated the following year.

Shortly thereafter, in 1935, Titus Brandsma began collecting old monastery bricks intended to build the chapels for the Stations of the Cross planned next to the large chapel.
In 1937, on behalf of the Brotherhood, he turned to Jac Maris to ask if he could make a Stations of the Cross for it. Maris was very happy with the invitation and immediately wrote a letter of confirmation. (source: Dr. Leo Ewals, KDC 2016)

Maris made it a particularly evocative Stations of the Cross, much more expressive than the Carmel-Madonna and Joseph he had previously made for Brandsma. Apparently Brandsma allowed him to follow his inspiration unhindered, as Maris had requested in his first letter to the Carmelite. He set up the compositions with mostly semi-figures, so that facial expression and gesture become very important and the event takes place close to the viewer. Of the secondary figures we sometimes see no more than the hands.

He made the stations in clay, cut them into sections, baked and glazed them and finally put them back together again. The representations were placed in recesses in the masonry chapels. Those recesses were rectangular, with extensions at the bottom on some of the stations.
(Source: Dr. Leo Ewals, Catholic Documentation Center, 2016)

From the Christian tradition we know the phenomenon of meditations on the Passion, intended to reflect on the suffering of Christ. A specific form are meditations on the Way of the Cross: texts for reflection on the various stations of the Way of the Cross. While artists used images to express the suffering, orators used words to do so. We know of two Stations of the Cross meditations by Titus Brandsma, one of which he wrote in 1942 for the pilgrimage park in Dokkum.

Titus himself did not live to see the Stations of the Cross. He died July 26, 1942 in Dachau, six months after he was taken prisoner. In the first period of his imprisonment, during his stay in the penal prison in Scheveningen, Titus wrote the Stations of the Cross especially for the Boniface pilgrimage site in Dokkum.
(Source: Anne-Marie Bos, Friesch Dagblad, March 30, 2019)(Bron: Anne-Marie Bos, Friesch Dagblad, 30 maart 2019)

Jac Maris was born on February 21, 1900 in Magdeburg (DE). He is the grandson of Jacob Maris, the famous landscape painter of the Hague School. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to the sculptor Achiilis Moortgat in Kleve, where he was living at the time. Jac Marris was employed for several years after 1915 by Rud. Bless (Kunsthandel Sier uw Huis, Nijmegen) and also designs sculptures there, which are initially fired elsewhere in Nijmegen, but then in Bless’ kiln. In 1917 the Maris family moves to Nijmegen.

I the 1930s-forties he creates many statues of saints and other sacred works. He designs a Way of the Cross in majolica relief for the Way of the Cross parks of Bergharen and Dokkum, the latter commissioned by Titus Brandsma.

After World War II, as a former resistance fighter, Maris received several commissions for war memorials. The best known are the Airborne monument in Oosterbeek, and in Nijmegen the monument on Plein 1944 and Jan van Hoof memorial on the Waalbrug.
(Bron: http://www.capriolus.nl/nl/
content/maris-jac)

Between trips, he is in Nijmegen, where he marries Wilhelmina Vermeer in 1923. Three years later he settles in Heumen, where he rents the Blokhuis, today’s studio museum. There he creates a rich body of work in wood, ceramics, artificial stone and natural stone. Since 1928, Maris also manifests himself outside the region.

As a religious artist, Maris gains many contacts in the Catholic milieu.

Many works of art by Jac Maris can be seen in Nijmegen and its surroundings, not only the well-known war monuments, but also sculptures that even Nijmegen residents do not know exist. Here you can view these sculptures. In Heumen you can visit the Atelier Museum of Jac Maris. It is located in the former studio of Jac Maris. The museum shows a collection of works from the period 1915 to 1994. It has over one hundred works in stone, metal and bronze, about sixty ceramic works and over three hundred drawings. The Maris House also has a sculpture garden.