Which art critic is the Mock Turtle's drawling-master reference?

The Mock Turtle’s drawling-master reference is John Ruskin, the Victorian art critic and writer.

In Chapter 9 of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Mock Turtle recalls being taught “Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils” by an old conger eel. The joke alludes to Ruskin, who visited the Liddell family and gave the children lessons in drawing, sketching, and painting in oils.

The reference connects Wonderland wordplay with Alice’s real-world origins. Alice Liddell was the daughter of Henry Liddell, dean of Christ Church, Oxford, where Charles Dodgson—writing as Lewis Carroll—taught mathematics. Ruskin was a prominent Victorian critic whose writings helped shape the period’s ideas about art and beauty.

The other options are notable Victorian literary figures, but they are not the person traditionally identified behind the Mock Turtle’s art-teaching joke. “Drawling” is Carroll’s comic alteration of drawing, while “fainting in coils” turns artistic instruction into a surreal sea-creature pun.