Chithiraalayam a gallery showcasing the work of, outstanding painters of the calendar industry of Sivakasi, Kondiah Raju and his star pupils Chithiraalayam Ramalingam and Subbiah. While there were other gifted pupils in his gurukulam, these two made their impact felt on the calendar industry.

These two artists brought divinity to the homes of the masses by depicting the Gods and Goddesses of the Hindu Pantheon in the form of portraits which were used by the printing industry to print the reproductions of the same on calendars finding a pride of place in the homes of the Hindus.

The originals of these works are being exhibited in this gallery and one can observe the careful attention to detail, the immaculate brush strokes making one wonder whether this a photograph or a painting by an artist.

The evolution of these works of art can be traced to the paintings of Raja Ravi Varma who painted masterpieces in the form of Portraits . A few of his masterpieces were made available in the form of photographic reproductions but its reach was only to the elite and a few.

This changed when the textile and jewellery showrooms started offering free calendars on new year to their customers. The jewellers commissioned the Sivakasi Printers to print calendars with images of Gods and Goddesses and gave the theme of the picture to the printer.

The printer in turn gave this theme to the artists such as Kondiah Raju, Chithiraalayam Ramalingam and Subbiah who conceptualised the theme in the form of the images of the Gods and Goddesses of the Hindu religion.

The printers then got the approval from their clients and mass produced these original paintings in the form of photo reproductions on the calendars. These calendars were then distributed by these retail showrooms to the their customers thus these paintings reached a very large audience and once the year was over most of the people who had the calendars used to frame the photographs of the images on the calendar and hung it in the pooja room.

Ramalingam and Subbiah in order to ensure that their paintings depicted the Gods and Goddesses as found in the images at the temples, personally visited the temples and drew sketches of the Image of the Gods and Goddesses in the sanctum sanctorum and subsequently refined these sketches and made the portraits which depicted the divinity as found in the temple. The pictures of Lord Balaji of Tirumala, Goddess Meenakshi of Madurai, Goddess Kanthimathi of Tirunelveli are a few examples of the paintings drawn by the artists after visiting the temples to obtain the actual details of the images, the ornaments worn, the dresses draped and the kind of alangaram (beautification) done to the deities