Final answer:
The 'Pop' in Pop Art refers to popular culture, with artists using imagery from mass media to critique and define the consumerist society post-WWII. Roy Lichtenstein's 'Whaam!' is ironic because it uses comic strip aesthetics to create high art and comments on violence and war's glamorization.
Step-by-step explanation:
The term "Pop" in Pop Art refers to its derivation from "popular" culture. This art movement eschewed traditional 'fine art' by drawing upon imagery and materials from everyday mass media such as comic books, advertisements, and consumer product packaging. Artists were drawn to Pop Art as it offered a lens to view, critique, and reflect the burgeoning consumerist society and the explosion of mass-produced media after World War II.
Roy Lichtenstein's Whaam! is considered ironic for a number of reasons. The artwork borrows from the visual vocabulary of comic strips—a form of mass entertainment—to create a piece of 'high' art. Additionally, while depicting explosive action and warfare, the image is rendered with a mechanical precision and detached coolness, which could be seen as a commentary on society's consumption of violence and the glamorization of war.
Pop Art, particularly Lichtenstein's work, boldly questioned and often blurred the distinctions between high and low culture, merging commercial art techniques with fine art principles, while simultaneously commenting on the very culture from which it drew inspiration.