title: matplotlib and subplots properties
body: <p>I'm adding a matplotlib figure to a canvas so that I may integrate it with pyqt in my application. I were looking around and using <code>plt.add_subplot(111)</code> seem to be the way to go(?) But I cannot add any properties to the subplot as I may with an "ordinary" plot</p>
  
  <p>figure setup</p>
  
  <pre><code>self.figure1 = plt.figure()
  self.canvas1 = FigureCanvas(self.figure1)
  self.graphtoolbar1 = NavigationToolbar(self.canvas1, frameGraph1)
  
  hboxlayout = qt.QVBoxLayout()
  
  hboxlayout.addWidget(self.graphtoolbar1)
  hboxlayout.addWidget(self.canvas1)
  
  frameGraph1.setLayout(hboxlayout)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>creating subplot and adding data</p>
  
  <pre><code>df = self.quandl.getData(startDate, endDate, company)
  
  ax = self.figure1.add_subplot(111)
  ax.hold(False)
  ax.plot(df['Close'], 'b-')
  ax.legend(loc=0)
  ax.grid(True)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I'd like to set x and y labels, but if I do <code>ax.xlabel("Test")</code></p>
  
  <pre><code>AttributeError: 'AxesSubplot' object has no attribute 'ylabel'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>which is possible if I did it by not using subplot </p>
  
  <pre><code>plt.figure(figsize=(7, 4))
  plt.plot(df['Close'], 'k-')
  plt.grid(True)
  plt.legend(loc=0)
  plt.xlabel('value')
  plt.ylabel('frequency')
  plt.title('Histogram')
  locs, labels = plt.xticks()
  plt.setp(labels, rotation=25)
  plt.show()
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>So I guess my question is, is it not possible to modify subplots further? Or is it possible for me to plot graphs in a pyqt canvas, without using subplots so that I may get benefit of more properties for my plots.</p>