Reference sources include handbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries, companions, and bibliographies. While these terms can be fluid, here are some baseline meanings:
Here is a selected list of handbooks you may find useful. Handbooks provide readers with a summary overview of a topic and include carefully selected bibliographies. Be sure to look at the lists for further reading provided by the authors of the entries--they will be especially useful for you as you deepen your research.
Hotei Encyclopedia of Japanese Woodblock Prints
: This 2 volume set offers informed essays on themes, artists, and connections with art, photography, and cultural history.
Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan
: although published in 1986, this 9 volume encyclopedia is an excellent place to begin one's research.
Oxford Art Online
Includes full-text articles on every aspect of the visual arts from prehistory through the present. Contains images and provides links to related sites.
Companion to Asian Art and Architecture
The most relevant chapter is "Revisiting Asian Art" (p. 3) which has an excellent introduction to the ways of seeing Asian art and how to appropriately analyze Asian art in a historical context.
A Companion to Japanese History
This is an excellent resource on the history of Japan in short, digestible sections. Each chapter includes notes, bibliographical information, and a section on further reading. It also includes trends in the field.
Historical Dictionary of Japan to 1945
This historical dictionary provides short, concise entries to further develop your research. It is especially helpful because it provides the terms in Japanese as well as in English.
Literature reviews are a particularly useful kind of article when doing research. They address the issues involved in a particular question and the debates among scholars. They map out the intellectual terrain succinctly and give you the major landmarks in terms of key authors and significant titles.
Oxford Bibliographies Online
provide literature reviews for a variety of fields including Asian Studies (they specify the following subject areas: Chinese Studies, Buddhism, International Relations, etc. You can take a look at their subjects and complete a few searches to find what you are interested in). The essays take the form of an annotated bibliography. It gives you the benefit of expert advice when identifying what to read for your research.
Doctoral dissertations (and in some cases, master's theses) often contain substantial reviews of the scholarly literature and other resources related to the topic or issue the author is researching. If you cannot find an Oxford Bibliography that is sufficiently relevant or helpful for your research, these studies written by graduate researchers can be a very good alternative or supplement.
Note that dissertations may not have a section titled "Literature Review," even if they have one.
The ProQuest Dissertations & Theses database (use linked icons above) allows you to search through a large collection of these documents.
Beyond simply searching for terms of interest, these approaches may be helpful.