Art made great progress under the patronage of Chalukya kings. A new style of architecture known as the Chalukya style which was different from the Gupta style was developed during this period. Aihole represents the best of Chalukyan architecture and thus has rightly called the cradle of Indian temple architecture. The three famous temples at Aihole are Ladh Khan Temple, Durga temple and Hucchimalligudi temple. The Ladh temple is a flat roofed structure. The Durga temple was an experiment seeking to adopt the Buddhist chaitya to a Brahmanical temple. The Hucchimalligudi temple is very much similar to the Durga temple but smaller than it. The movement of rock-cut halls was initiated during the 7th century AD. There are as many as 10 temples at Pattadakal belonging to this period.
There are four temples in the northern style and six of them follow the Dravidian style. Among them the temple of Virupaksha is the most important one. It is a direct initiation of the Kailashnatha temple of Kanchi and was built by one of the queens of Vikramaditya II. Another important achievement of the Chalukyan art was the building of excavated cave temples of Hindu gods. The Melagiti Sivalaya at Badami is a small but finely proportioned and magnificently located temple.