Patriotic fervour has engulfed the National Gallery of Australia as it revealed a radical rehang of its collection of Australian art.
The NGA has also ditched its traditional international summer blockbuster for an exhibition of works by Tom Roberts. 
The NGA's reversion to nationalism was announced in Canberra on Wednesday by Arts Minister George Brandis, who said the works of Roberts were "some of Australia's best known and best loved, and the foundation of Australia's visual heritage".
"They capture so much of the early Australian colonial spirit and they have since, so many of them, become iconic," he said.
Tom Roberts, which opens on   December 4, will feature 133 works, including his renowned Shearing the Rams and A Break Away.
The gallery will orient the show towards students and attempt to distribute the exhibition catalogue to every school in Australia.
Senator Brandis, who did not take questions, said he was pleased Roberts' enormous painting of the Federation of Australia ceremony in   May 1901, which the artist called The Big Picture, would be moved from Parliament House to the NGA for the show.
The painting is owned by the Queen but is on permanent loan to Australia after Robert Menzies hit up Her Majesty for the work over dinner in 1957, according to Senator Brandis.
There was no mention of the issues around the scandal that surrounds the acquisition of stolen Indian artefacts as Senator Brandis heaped praise on the NGA and its director Gerard Vaughan.
"We have great art galleries and at the pinnacle of Australia's art galleries stands this wonderful institution," he said.
Vaughan, who was previously head of NGV, described Roberts as "a kind of cultural warrior" who upset the conservative Melbourne art establishment in the late 19th century.
"Not everybody responded positively to this new fresh, naturalistic plein air style which Roberts and his mates introduced," he said. "And when they criticised it, Tom Roberts fought back."
Vaughan added: "As Arthur Boyd once remarked, I quote him, 'All Australian paintings are in some way a homage to Tom Roberts'. And that's one of the reasons we're doing the show."
Giving the summer slot to a show featuring Australian art would inevitably lead to lower attendance figures, Vaughan said. "Everyone knows there is no Australian exhibition historically that has ever come near to outgunning the big imported shows."
But he was "hoping to match or exceed" the estimated 135,000 visitors for the NGV's 2007 Australian Impressionism show, which included Roberts' works.
Future summer slots would be filled with imported shows, Vaughan said.