Art Galleries in Chennai

National Art Gallery (Pantheon Road)
Fine collection of old paintings. On display are 10th and 13th century Rajasthani and Mughal paintings, 17th century Deccani paintings and 11th and 12th century Indian handicrfts. The collection is housed in a beautiful Mughal style builing with an exquisitely wrought pink sandstone facade.
AS distinctive feature of the temple is that it houses five avatars(incarnations)
of Loed Vishnu: Aranganathan, venkatesa, Narasimhan, consort, vedavalli Ammal.
Originally built by the pallavas in the8th century, the Temple underwant several additions and renovations as is revealed by pallava inscriptions, fragment of Cholla reverds and inscriptions of vijayanagara times found in the temple complex.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, this temple was the scene of many battles, Golconda, the Dutch and the French occupying it at various times. B etween 1672 and 1674, the French fortified it as their northern outpost and made the kapaliswarar temple their western outpost when they besieged by Golconda and the Dutch.


Adhispurishvarar Temple (Tiruvotriyur)
This ancient shive temple pre-dates the 8th century and was built during the reign of thwe cholla emperor, Rajendra-1, Architecturally and sculpfurally, it is one of the finest examples of cholla temple art.
The verandah surrounding the central shrine has exquisite little shrines dedicated to minor deities and a group of small temple stand in the temple courtyard. Particularly beautiful are the carvings of the Thyagaraja shrine. The vimana is apsidal in form. This styel of vimana differs from the pyramidal type and was a popular feature of cholla architecture.
There is a tradition that associates Durga Devi, on the northern side of the main shrine, with kannagi the herione of theancient Tamil epic, silappadikkaram. Every year, the temple celebrates a 15-day festival in her honour, on the last day of wich the pandal is burnt down as a symbol of kannagi burning down Madurai city.

Tiruvalliswarar Temple(padi)
This sprawling ancient cholla temple, with inscriptions dating back to the reign of Rajaraja cholla (1216-1246AD),has several exquisite examples of cholla sculpture.

Vadaapalani Temple (kodambakkam)
This renowned temple,a little over a century old,is of great beauty and grandeur.
Dedicated to Sri palani Andavar,it has an exquisite 4-ft sculpture of the presiding deity.

Ashtalakshmi Temple (Elliot’s Beach,Besant Nagar)
Near the southern tip of Elliot’s Beach is this shrine dedicated to goddess Mahalakshmi in all her eight(ashta) manifestations.There is only one other temple to the goddess elsewhere on the Indian coast-and that is the Mahalakshmi temple in Mumbai.
The beautiful off-white gopuram of this temple,which was consecrated in 1976,clearly reveals a modern influence in Dravidian temple building,for it is quite unlike the usual South Indian temple gopuram. Nearby is the another Arupadaiveedu Temple for Lord Muruga.

Luz church(Luz Church Road,Mylapore)
Standing a mile form the Basillica of St.Thomas,it lays claim to being the oldest church construction in chennai. It is know to the locals as kaattu kovil (jungle church.)
The Luz Church is dedicated to ‘Our Lady of Light’. An inscription in the church attributes its construction to a Franciscan monk who is supposed to built it in 1516.

Velankanni Church
This church is dedicated to our Lady of Health,the Madonna of Velanganni.Though
much smaller than the original church at Velanganni,this church at Elliot’s Beach still swarms of pilgrims who have an implicit faith in the miraculous healing powers of the Madonna.

Santhome
Santhome,Little Mount and st.Thomas Mount are the three areas in the city associated with different aspects of the ‘Doubting’Apostle’s days in Mylapore.
At the southern end of the Marina is San Thome, which owen its name to the apostle of India, St. Thomas Dydimus. Doubting Thomas died some time in 78AD on St. Thomas Mount, just outside the city’s southern limits. He is said to have been first buried on the San Thome beach, and a church was built at this site. He was later reinterred in a new church further inland. This second church was rebuilt in 1606 as a Cathedral and the present towering Basilica was built in 1896 on the same site.
The Santhome Basilica has an enormous stained glass window depicting the story of Doubting Thomas’ and a beautiful 1-m high staue of the Virgin Mary, believed to have been brought from portugal in 1543. High up on the walls of the central hall are 14 wooden plaques carved in 13th century style, portraying in plasster and natural colours scenes from the last dys of Christ.

St. Thomas Mount
A flight of 160 steps, built by the Armenian merchant coja petrus Uscan, leads up to the summit of St. Thomas Mount when he fled Little Mount. And it was here that they killed him.
There is at the summit a superb, old relic-filled church, built by the portuguese in 1523, at the instance of their king Emmanuel, on the sife of the old Nestorian monastery.
One of the most interesting relice here, that excavation i n 1547 unearthed, is a Stone Cross with old Sassanian pehlevi inscription of it reputed to have been chiseled by the Apostle himself. Also above the alter is an oil painting of the Madonna. This is believed to be one of the seven painted by St. Luke and brought to India by St. Thomas.
At the northrn foot of the Mount is a gateway of four impressive arches sumounted by a cross bearing the inscribed date-1547.

Thousand Lights’ Mosque
This is a beautiful cream-coloured, multi-domed mosque with walls bearing recently painted sayings from the Hpoly koran. It stands at the junction of Anna Salai (Mount Road) and peters Road in an area known as A y i r a m v i l a k k u (Thousand Lights) which derives its name from the ancient practice of profusely lighting this triangular wedge of hallowed Muslim buildings. The original mosque was construlcted here by Nawab Umbat-ul-Umrah in 1880 for the assemblage of Shias during Mutharram Mourning.

Big’ Mosque
Standing on Quaid-E-Milletr High Road is the architecturally splendid Wallajah mosque, better known as Big Mosque. It was built in 1789+, with Nawab wallajah’s family playing a leading role in its construction.