title: Setting axes.linewidth without changing the rcParams global dict
body: <p>So, it seems one cannot do the following (it raises an error, since <code>axes</code> does not have a <code>set_linewidth</code> method):</p>
  <pre><code>axes_style = {'linewidth':5}
  axes_rect = [0.1, 0.1, 0.9, 0.9]
  
  axes(axes_rect, **axes_style)
  </code></pre>
  <p>and has to use the following old trick instead:</p>
  <pre><code>rcParams['axes.linewidth'] = 5 # set the value globally
  
  ... # some code
  
  rcdefaults() # restore [global] defaults
  </code></pre>
  <p>Is there an easy / clean way (may be one can set <code>x</code>- and <code>y</code>- axes parameters individually, etc)?</p>
  <p>If no, why?</p>