The mind of the Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson is too complicated,too mired in 19th-century sensibility to contemplate from our perch onthe verge of the 21st century. We read his most famous works - Alice'sAdventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, written under Dodgson'sworld-famous pseudonym, Lewis Carroll - and it's tempting to attributethe wild fantasy and surreal depictions to drugs, maybe, or mental illness,possibly.

Reading his journals and selected pieces of the some 98,000letters he wrote during his lifetime show a man devoted to God and logic,with a burning core of appreciation for beauty and purity, which he foundin the faces of children - most notably young girls.

The Dayton Art Institute is hosting 'Reflections in aLooking Glass: A Lewis Carroll Centenary Exhibition,' now through June11. It may be seen by some as a slightly risky proposition, given the popularcurrent speculation as to Dodgson's motives in his admittedly obvious preoccupationwith prepubescent girls. But the 60 original photographs, augmented byfirst editions and Alice memorabilia, go far to enlighten and enlarge anyspeculation.

DAI Director Alex Nyerges says he knew next to nothingabout Dodgson before the museum planned this exhibition; he has since becomean amateur expert, having immersed himself in Dodgson's letters and biographies.He deflects any speculation as to Dodgson's character, believing the artist'smotives to be as pure as the faces of the children he photographed.

'I knew so little about him before,' Nyerges said. 'Ihave a better sense of where he was coming from. Taking a purely romantic,Victorian perspective on young girls. We shouldn't judge - we cannot understandthe context in which he was living.

'If we don't think about love in terms of sex and physicalcontact,' Nyerges continued, 'there's an obvious beauty and grace in whathe did.'

That said, the exhibit speaks for itself in terms of photographicexcellence. Dodgson's specialized in portraits, experimenting on his family.He was eldest of a large brood, living a life (in Oxford, England) fullof friends and children, many of whom became willing subjects for his work.Taking pictures in the mid-1800s was a tedious process - from a wet collodionnegative, he made positive albumen prints. The subjects were required tosit for quite a while, and they're rarely smiling - Victorian England waslike that.

Dodgson staged elaborate costume dramas, such as St. Georgeslaying the dragon, with children dressed up and posed accordingly. Hisintial portrait of Alice Liddell - the Alice - was as a beggar maid. Shewas one of Dodgson's favorite subjects, until her mother abruptly cut offall contact between the artist and the girl when Alice was 11 years old.The reasons for the break remain one of history's great mysteries and thesource of much gossip.

Only one photograph of Alice Liddell is included in theDAI exhibition, that being a picture of her and her two sisters. ThroughDodgson's novels, Alice became his most famous subject, though he photographedmany celebrities of the day, including Prince Leopold and Alfred, LordTennyson and his family.

The collection, organized by the Harry Ransom HumanitiesCenter at the University of Texas at Austin, expands the view of Dodgson/Carrollwith examples of his papers in math and logic - which he taught at ChristChurch College - and the acrostics and puzzles in which he took obviousdelight.

It's an illuminating exhibit, an expansive look at oneof history's most engimatic, complicated and multitalented artists.