consuming fragonard

Greg Cook has a review of Consuming Passions, the show of Fragonard's late allegorical paintings at the Clark (soon to go to the Getty.)  While respectful, and managing to give more of a sense of the whole range of work on display than I ever have when writing about the exhibition, do I detect a certain lack of, to coin a phrase, consuming passion on Greg's part for the central focus of the show?  He does allow that the exhibition is "at its best" when it offers the opportunity to examine the different approaches Fragonard took in treating the theme of "The Sacrifice of the Rose" (one version of which is displayed at the top of his review in all of its treacly glory.)  There's certainly something to that, as the different media and compositions do give a sense of the artist's developing ideas.  And this remains Fragonard, of course: I may have found the material lacking, but the guy still was something--this drawing of the "Sacrifice," for instance, with its classical setting and evocation of the baroque, does a lot more for me than the finished paintings.  Greg's certainly right to praise the gallery of Fragonard's earlier work, including the delightful drawing of "The Waterworks" (image not available, unfortunately), as well as the Painted Love companion exhibition, an excellent example of using little-seen works from the permanent collection to add context and interest to the main display.  But when it comes to the point of actually claiming that the late allegories are good (in the sense of more than competent) or important paintings, I don't see it in this review.